Yemen Truce Bid Gathers Pace

(MENAFN- Arab Times) Yemen ceasefire efforts gathered pace Sunday after more than six weeks of Saudi-led air strikes, with rebels saying they would respond "positively" and their allies accepting a US-backed truce plan. The renegade troops, who helped the Shiite Houthi rebels seize much of the country, said they had agreed to the five-day humanitarian truce that Riyadh has offered from Tuesday.

The rebels did not refer explicitly to the Saudi offer, but expressed "readiness to deal positively with any efforts, calls or measures that would help end the suffering". Amid the truce moves, a ship chartered by the UN's World Food Programme docked in the western port of Hodeida, bringing precious fuel to boost aid deliveries. It aimed at "opening up a new humanitarian lifeline for civilians impacted by the conflict" in Yemen, where drastic fuel shortages have hurt aid operations, the WFP said. The MV Amsterdam brought 300,000 litres of fuel and supplies for humanitarian organisations, while a second vessel would bring another 120,000 litres later Sunday.

WFP Yemen director Purnima Kashyap said the fuel will mean aid can reach "hundreds of thousands of people in need of urgent food assistance". The United Nations has expressed deep concern about the civilian death toll from the bombing campaign and the humanitarian impact of the air and sea blockade that Saudi Arabia and its allies have imposed on Yemen. Coalition warplanes pounded the Houthi stronghold Saada in the northern mountains for a second straight night Saturday after declaring the whole province a military target. "Many civilians are effectively trapped in Saada as they are unable to access transport because of the fuel shortage," the UN's humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Johannes van der Klaauw, said in a statement, warning of "the indiscriminate bombing of populated areas." Warplanes also launched twin strikes on the Sanaa residence of ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is accused of orchestrating the alliance between renegade army units and the rebels.

The renegade units, who remained loyal to Saleh after he was forced from power in early 2012, played a major part in the Iran-backed rebels' capture of swathes of the country beyond Saada in the mainly Shiite northern highlands. "Following mediation from friendly countries to establish a humanitarian truce" we announce our agreement," said Colonel Sharaf Luqman, spokesman for the army defectors. The defectors' bases have been a major target in the coalition campaign in support of exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The United Nations says the conflict has killed more than 1,400 people since late March.

The rebels welcomed efforts by "friendly countries to end the aggression and the suffering of the Yemeni people". That was an apparent reference to Russia, which unsuccessfully put a ceasefire proposal to the UN Security Council earlier this month and has pressed constantly for a halt to the air war. Saudi Arabia has stressed that its ceasefire offer is conditional on the rebels reciprocating and not exploiting it for military advantage. Saleh's political party, the General People's Congress said it hoped the proposal would minimise the "impact of the aggression that has burdened the Yemeni people with unprecedented suffering and an unparallelled blockade".

The ousted strongman, who ruled for more than three decades, was not believed to have been in Sanaa when his residence was attacked early Sunday. Riyadh said the rebels had crossed a "red line" with deadly shelling of populated border areas of the kingdom last week. Coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed al-Assiri told AFP that Saudi artillery pounded positions inside Yemen after renewed rocket fire wounded four women in the kingdom on Sunday. Clashes meanwhile raged between rebel and pro-Hadi forces in the main southern city of Aden, killing five civilians over the past 24 hours, medics said. A military source said 15 rebels were killed in Sunday clashes in Aden, and a local pro-Hadi militia source said four loyalist fighters had died, among them a leading figure identified as Haitham al- Adani. A new alliance of local associations, businessmen and activists in Aden, meanwhile, issued a statement appealing for international humanitarian aid.

The Aden Alliance for Popular Aid said the city urgently needed food supplies, medicines, field hospitals and fuel, as well as "safe corridors" within areas of fighting so the wounded can be evacuated. In Shabwa province farther east, an apparent US drone strike killed four Al- Qaeda suspects, a military official said. Tribal sources said the target was a vehicle.

Foil
The Saudi-led air war on Yemen was launched to foil a plot by a "sectarian group" to undermine security in the region, King Salman said on Sunday. The Saudi monarch was defending the military operation Riyadh has led against Yemen rebels since March 26, in an address read to clerics on his behalf by an adviser in the Muslim holy city of Makkah.

The operation has prevented Yemen from "becoming a theatre for terrorism, discord, and internal fighting, similar to some countries," said Salman, in remarks published by the official SPA news agency. Saudi Arabia wanted to "support Yemen and confront the attempt to transform it into a base for launching a plot to undermine regional security and stability", he said. The kingdom and members of the coalition began the campaign to "save Yemen and its brotherly people from a group entrenched with the spirit of sectarianism", Salman said, referring to the Shiite Houthi rebels. He said the rebels had "threatened neighbouring countries, especially Saudi Arabia, with backing from foreign parties seeking to spread their influence across the region and sow sedition", implying Iran. This is an example of "using sectarianism to achieve political" goals, he said.

The Houthis were also "backed by internal Yemeni groups that broke their agreements," he said of Yemen's former president Ali Abdullah Saleh whose loyalists have been fighting alongside the Houthis. Saleh resigned in 2012 under a Saudibacked deal following a year-long uprising against his rule. Sunni Saudi Arabia accuses its Shiite rival Iran of attempting to expand its zones of influence across the region. Tehran has repeatedly criticised the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen.