An undated file picture shows Hussein Badrudin Al-Houthi

SANAA, September 10 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Yemeni forces killed on Friday, September 10, rebel leader cleric Hussein Badrudin Al-Houthi and tens of his supporters, ending over two months of clashes that have left over 200 rebels and troops dead, a government official said.

"We can confirm that Houthi and tens of his supporters were killed today in morning fighting," the official told Reuters news agency. "This is the end of the rebellion."

The government accuses Houthi, leader of the “Faithful Youth” group and a Zaidi Shiite sect, of setting up unlicensed religious centers and of forming an armed group.

Yemen had offered a $54,000 reward for Houthi's capture, and in June security forces launched an operation to capture him in the mountainous Saada province, some 150 miles north of the capital Sanaa.

Hundreds of his top aides and followers were killed in July and August.

Houthi had accused Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh of seeking to please the United States at the expense of his own people.

Anti-US Sentiments

Saleh, who has cooperated closely with the alleged US-led "war on terror" and has been fighting to root out militants linked to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda group, denied the offensive against Houthi was ordered by the US administration. 

Houthi has not been accused of any al-Qaeda links, but anti-US sentiment is running high in Yemen over the US occupation of Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The US destroyer Cole was blasted in Yemen 's Aden port in 2000. In November 2002, a CIA drone aircraft killed six alleged members of Al-Qaeda in Yemeni territories. 

The American CNN news network confirmed that the suspects' vehicle was hit by a Hellfire missile fired from the CIA drone.

A French supertanker was also attacked in 2002 in the Gulf of Aden .

A Yemeni court has also jailed last month five Al-Qaeda suspects for 10 years for bombing the French supertanker Limburg and sentenced to death another militant who plotted with them to kill the US ambassador to Sanaa.