SANAA/ADEN: The U.N. envoy who helped broker a deal to ease Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh from power urged the new government Thursday to bring stability after months of unrest that pushed the country to the brink of civil war.

Vice President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi announced Wednesday the formation of a national unity government to prepare the country for a presidential election in February.

“The government should have a role in bringing stability and security to Yemen and rebuilding its economy,” U.N. envoy Jamal Benomar told state news agency Saba as he arrived in the capital Sanaa.

He said he wanted to meet government officials and the opposition before drafting a report on the implementation of the deal signed by Saleh last month to hand power to Hadi and end months of violent protests.

“Forming the new government is an important part of the agreement,” Benomar said, adding he would submit his report to a United Nations Security Council meeting on Dec. 14.

The United States and Gulf Arab states, which brokered the deal, hope it will halt a slide into civil chaos they fear could spill over into neighboring oil-producer Saudi Arabia and give militants suspected of links to Al-Qaeda space to thrive.

Under the power transfer plan, Saleh’s General People’s Congress party agreed to divide Cabinet posts with its opponents in a coalition government headed by an opposition leader, Mohammad Basindawa.

Apart from preparing for the election, the government must try to restore security and vital services, and combat rising separatist sentiment in the south.

In what was seen by southern secessionists as a gesture of goodwill, the leader of Yemen’s separatist Southern Movement, Hassan Baoum, was released Wednesday night just hours after Hadi announced the unity government lineup. Baoum was arrested in February in an Aden hospital where he was being treated.

“He called me when he was released and assured me that he was in good shape and that he was staying with my brother in a hotel in Sanaa,” Baoum’s son, Fadi, told Reuters Thursday. He said his brother Fawaz, who was arrested along with his father, had also been released.

Baoum has been arrested several times in the past four years, including once in November 2010 on charges of planning illegal demonstrations.

Leaders of a five-year-old secession movement saw in the months of protests against Saleh’s 33-year rule an opportunity to further their cause.

North and south Yemen formally united in 1990 but some in the south, home to many of Yemen’s oil facilities, say northerners have since seized resources and discriminated against them. The Sanaa government says the south’s economic woes are shared by the north.

Separately, militants linked to Al-Qaeda attacked an army post in an embattled southern province but were driven back, leaving nine of their dead behind, officials said Thursday.

The security official said that one soldier was also killed in the Wednesday night firefight east of the town of Zinjibar in Abyan province.

Militants overran Zinjibar in May, shortly after a 10-month-old uprising against authoritarian President Ali Abdullah Saleh caused a breakdown of authority throughout the country.

The military patched up a temporary alliance with mutinous anti-Saleh units and fought their way back into the town in June, but have yet to establish full control and regularly clash with the Islamists.

Despite its potential to end the violence, many Yemenis reject the power transfer deal as it leaves much of the regime in place and offers the outgoing president immunity from prosecution.

Tens of thousands of Yemenis rallied in the capital Sanaa and several other cities calling for President Saleh to face trial for alleged corruption and killing of protesters.

Military units throughout the country remain divided in their loyalties. Some back Saleh, his family or other regime figures, and others are allied with the outgoing president’s rivals in the powerful al-Ahmar clan or with other opposition forces.

The splits in Yemen’s government and military provide a window of opportunity for Al-Qaeda, which has long had bases in the country, to continue to contest control of Abyan province and other territories.

A medic at a military hospital in the nearby city of Aden confirmed Wednesday’s attack, and said that four wounded soldiers were under treatment. Both he and the security official spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media.