Yemen's Houthi group said on Wednesday it was ready to stop fighting and join a national unity government, raising hopes of a resolution to a conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people.

The announcement appeared to confirm the details of a deal set out by US Secretary of State John Kerry a day earlier that he said included plans for a ceasefire starting on Thursday.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the political council of the Houthi's Ansarullah group, said Saudi Arabia had also agreed to end its involvement in the war - though there was no official confirmation from Riyadh.

An Arab alliance led by Saudi Arabia intervened in the Yemen conflict in March last year in support of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after the Iran-aligned Houthis advanced on his interim capital in Aden and forced him into exile.

"Ansarullah's position has been and still is with stopping the war and the establishment of a national unity government that incorporates all political components," Bukhaiti told Reuters, responding to a question on Kerry's announcement.

"The new thing is in the position of Saudi (Arabia), which has agreed in principle to stop the war as one of the parties to the conflict," Bukhaiti added.

After months of bombings and other attacks, no side has emerged as the dominant force in a war that has displaced more than three million people, left parts of the population on the edge of starvation and given room for a powerful branch of al Qaeda to expand its operations.

Ceasefire

Kerry, in what could be his last trip to the Gulf before President Barack Obama's term ends in January, said on Tuesday that officials from the Houthi group and the Saudi-led coalition meeting had agreed to a ceasefire starting on Thursday.

Underlining the complexity of the situation, Hadi's government quickly rejected the move, complaining that it had been bypassed. Copies of a U.N. peace plan seen by Reuters in October suggested he would be sidelined in any future government.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdel-Malek al-Mekhlafi said Kerry's announcement had not been coordinated with the government which, he said, was not interested in the plan.

"I believe the current US administration is incapable of providing any guarantees to any party and what Kerry has said is no more than a media bubble at our people's expense," Mekhlafi told Qatar-based Al Jazeera television.

The frontline has changed little over the past few months despite repeated offensives by Hadi's supporters who operate under air cover from the Saudi-led alliance.

Hadi's government says the Houthis have illegally seized power in a coup backed by Iran, and demands that they quit the cities they have seized and hand over heavy weapons before any political settlement starts.

The Houthis say they seized power to end corruption and to get rid of Islamist militants they say had expanded their influence during Hadi's presidency.</s>Kerry is seeking to end the fighting between the Houthis, allied to Iran, and the Saudi-backed government of the Yemeni president before Obama’s term ends

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

US secretary of state John Kerry has said that Yemen’s Houthi rebel group and the Saudi-led coalition fighting it had agreed to a ceasefire from Thursday, as Washington presses for an end to the war before Barack Obama leaves office.

The internationally recognised Yemeni government quickly rejected the move, complaining of being bypassed. But it may have little choice if leaned on by Saudi Arabia, on which it depends both militarily and financially.

'After an hour the plane came back': repeated airstrikes take toll on Yemeni civilians Read more

More than 10,000 people have been killed and over 3 million displaced in the past 20 months in a war that has been overshadowed by the Syria conflict but which has created a humanitarian catastrophe.

Kerry, in what could be his last trip to the Gulf before Obama’s term ends in January, is seeking a breakthrough to end the fighting between the Houthis, allied to Iran, and the Saudi-backed government of Yemeni president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Speaking after talks in Oman, which is close to the Houthis, and the United Arab Emirates, a key member of the Saudi-led coalition, Kerry said he had presented Houthi delegates with a document outlining a ceasefire and peace deal.

He said the Houthis, whom he met in Oman on Monday night, had agreed to a ceasefire from Thursday, provided the other side implemented it. “And thus far the Emiratis and the Saudis ... they have both agreed to try to move forward with this,” he said.

The ceasefire would be on the same terms as an earlier one that ran from April until the end of August, when UN-sponsored peace talks in Kuwait ended in disagreement.

Kerry also said the parties “have agreed to work towards the establishing a new national unity government in a safe and secure Sana’a (the capital) ... as a goal towards the end of the year”.

But Yemeni foreign minister Abdel-Malek al-Mekhlafi said Kerry’s announcement had not been coordinated with his government.

“The government was not aware of, nor is it interested in, what Secretary Kerry announced, which represents a desire to scuttle peace efforts by trying to reach an agreement with the Houthis apart from the government,” Mekhlafi wrote on his official Twitter page.

“I believe the current US administration is incapable of providing any guarantees to any party and what Kerry has said is no more than a media bubble at our people’s expense,” Mekhlafi told Qatar-based al-Jazeera television.

Yemen is a security concern for the United States, partly because al-Qaida has a strong local wing there. In August, Kerry proposed during a visit to Saudi Arabia that the Yemeni parties work simultaneously on setting up a unity government that would incorporate the Houthis while the armed group withdrew from cities it has captured since 2014.

UN special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has been trying to build on the proposals and brought about a three-day ceasefire last month, but fighting resumed as soon as it ended.

In his remarks in Abu Dhabi, Kerry said the Saudis, Emiratis and Houthis had agreed publicly for the first time to send representatives to a de-escalation and coordinating committee and accept the envoy’s roadmap as the basis for negotiations.

Hadi’s government says the Houthis have illegally seized power in a coup backed by Iran, and demands that they quit the cities they have seized and hand over heavy weapons before any political settlement starts.

The Houthis say they seized power to end corruption and to get rid of Islamist militants they say expanded their influence during Hadi’s presidency.

</s>SANAA, Yemen — Amid more clashes on Thursday in Yemen, the country's Shiite rebels confirmed their endorsement of a U.S.-brokered cease-fire deal previously announced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

However, the backing of the deal by Yemeni rebels, also known as Houthis, was a moot point since Yemen's internationally-recognized government has already dismissed the plan as "unilateral," saying it was not involved in recent talks between Kerry and a Houthi delegation in Oman.

On the ground, government forces expelled rebels from several districts in the western city of Taiz while an international rights group issued a damning report on Thursday, criticizing the Houthis' detentions of political opponents.

Human Rights Watch said the Shiite rebels have carried out hundreds of unlawful detentions and torture since capturing the country's capital, Sanaa. The New York-based group said it has documented two deaths in custody and 11 cases of alleged torture and abuses.

HRW also called upon the Houthis in Sanaa to hold officials accountable and to release the detainees — without forcing them to sign false confessions of cooperating with a Saudi-led coalition that is waging a war to expel the Houthis from territory the rebels captured.

Sarah Leah Whitson, the Mideast director at Human Rights Watch, said the war between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition "provides no justification for torture and 'disappearance' of perceived opponents."

Houthis descended from their northern enclave in 2014 to take Sanaa and much of northern Yemen. The rebels forced President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee the country and seek shelter in Saudi Arabia, which subsequently launched the intervention by mostly Gulf Arab states that has consisted mainly of a punishing air campaign.

The airstrikes, together with the ground fighting, have pushed the already impoverished nation to the brink of famine and displaced nearly three million people. The conflict has killed over 4,000 civilians.

In his announcement, Kerry said the cease-fire was supposed to start on Thursday and lead to the formation of a unity government before the end of the year.

Mohammed Abdel-Salam, the Houthis spokesman, told Al-Masirah TV late on Wednesday that the rebels agreed to the deal.

The peace plane, however, sidelines Hadi, transfers his authorities to a newly appointed vice president, and gives the Houthis a share of power.

Residents in Taiz, one of the worst-hit cities in Yemen's conflict, said fighting escalated in the city's eastern districts. Images were posted on social media showing pro-government fighters on tanks and armored vehicles, flashing the victory sign in front of newly captured positions, including the city's military hospital.

Airstrikes resumed on other Yemen front lines: in the eastern province of Marib, outside of Sanaa, and in the northern Houthi stronghold of Saada.

Dozens were killed and wounded in the fighting but a precise death toll among fighters from the two sides was not available. The residents spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for their safety.</s>MAKKAH: A top Saudi official said the Kingdom will take all available measures to protect the Two Holy Mosques and stressed the importance of ending aggressive actions by the Iran-backed Houthis.



In an address to an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Makkah on Thursday, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Nizar bin Obaid Madani condemned last month’s attempted missile attack on the holy city.

“All Muslims must take a clear and strict stance against this attack to prevent Houthis from being encouraged to repeat this attempt,” he said.

The minister called on all Muslim countries to take steps against such attacks and to prevent any similar repeat attempts.

He also called for an end to the “aggressive actions toward Yemeni people” by the Houthi rebels and militias loyal to ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Such militias targeted Makkah on Oct. 27 with the launch of a ballistic missile. The Arab coalition said in an earlier statement that the missile was downed 65 km from Makkah, with coalition jet fighters destroying the rocket launchers in Saada.

The attempt to attack Makkah was condemned by leaders and scholars of Islamic countries. The attack was the first of its kind since the beginning of the Decisive Storm operation in Yemen. Houthi militias still however threaten the southern borders of the Kingdom with missiles.

The Iranian delegation did not attend the urgent OIC meeting held Thursday. Maha Akeel, director of the Information Department at the OIC, confirmed the absence of the Iranian delegation, with Iran’s chair remaining empty during the meeting.

The OIC’s acting Secretary-General, Abdullah Alem, said that Houthi and Saleh militias pose an ongoing threat to Yemen’s interests. The OIC expressed its strong condemnation of the attacks.

“I would confirm that the weapons cannot open the door of dialogue, while cooperation with external parties, which want to destroy our countries, will enhance instability in the region, (deepen) the conflict and expand the circle of the crisis. Our meeting in Makkah aims to confirm our historical responsibility toward this holy city,” Alem said.

Foreign ministers at Thursday’s meeting recommended the formation of a work team of the executive committee of the OIC to review steps to prevent the repeat of such attacks. It directed a letter to the United Nations to take international procedures to protect the holy sites. All foreign ministers agreed to enhance the unity of the Islamic states.

Manea Al-Mutairi, adviser to the Yemeni foreign minister, said the Houthi militias’ weapons represented a real threat to the region.

Speaking to Arab News, he said that Saudi Arabia and the Arab coalition are able to put an end to the aggressive actions of Houthis and Saleh militias. At the same time, the Yemeni government called on all Muslims to condemn the Houthis’ ongoing violations of humanitarian laws. 



New secretary-general

It also emerged on Thursday that Saudi Arabia’s former Social Affairs Minister Yousef Ahmed Al-Othaimeen had been elected as the new secretary-general of the OIC.

The post had fallen vacant after the resignation of Iyad Madani.

“Al-Othaimeen’s election was unanimous,” Akeel told Arab News. 

“Al-Othaimeen took charge on Thursday from acting Secretary-General Abdullah Alem.”</s>SANAA, Yemen — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday that Yemen's Shiite rebels have agreed to a cease-fire for their war-torn country, starting later this week — on condition their adversaries also agree to it.

Kerry told reporters that the rebels, known as Houthis, have told him they agree to abide by a cessation of hostilities, starting on Thursday, providing the government side does the same, and that they are also willing to participate in a unity government, to be formed by the end of the year.

"There is a humanitarian disaster in Yemen - (not) just serious security and economic and political and humanitarian challenges," the top American diplomat said after leaving Oman — an Arab country that has been a traditional Mideast go-between — where he held talks with a Houthi delegation

"All the parties we talk to agree that there's no military solution," Kerry said. "So if that's the fact, you've got to get into: What is the political solution?"

President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi's government promptly rejected the cease-fire initiative. Hadi's government is supported by a Saudi-led coalition that has been waging an air campaign in Yemen to dislodge the Houthis after they seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.

"The government doesn't know and is not concerned with what Kerry announced; this shows a desire to foil peace efforts by trying to reach a deal with Houthis away from the government," al-Mekhalfi wrote on his Twitter account.

Two top Hadi aides described Kerry's remarks as "unilateral deal." The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Hadi's government has opposed a road map to peace, which Kerry said won support of Houthis. The document, which was drafted last month by the U.N. envoy to Yemen, sidelines Hadi by stipulating the formation of a new unity government. It also transfers the president's powers to a and a new prime minister.

The document says the formation of the unity government would come hand-in-hand with preparations for the Houthis to withdraw from cities they seized and hand over their weapons to a third party.

Hadi's government described the road map as a reward to the rebels though Kerry said it has the support of the Saudi-led coalition.

Yemen has been caught in a deadly conflict since 2014 when the Houthis descended from their northern enclave and seized Saana, forcing Hadi's government to flee and seek military intervention from the Saudi and Arab Gulf states.

The relentless airstrikes, along with the fighting on the ground, have killed over 4,000 civilians and pushed Yemen, the Arab world's poorest nation, to the brink of famine.</s>ABS, Yemen — The taxi driver happened by just after a volley of airstrikes hit a highway in western Yemen. The driver, Mohammed al-Khal, stopped, took a wounded ice cream vendor into his car and rushed him to the nearest hospital.

But the warplanes were still hunting. Moments after al-Khal pulled up at the hospital in the town of Abs, hell was unleashed.

A missile struck just outside the hospital entrance, "like a ball of fire," one witness said. Al-Khal, a father of eight, was incinerated in his car. The blast ripped through patients and family waiting in an outdoor reception area. Nineteen people were killed, along with two civilians killed on the highway.

The attack in August typified what has been a pattern in the nearly 2-year-old air campaign by Saudi Arabia and its allies against Yemen's Shiite rebels, known as Houthis. Rights groups and U.N. officials say the U.S.-backed coalition has often either deliberately or recklessly depended on faulty intelligence, failed to distinguish between civilian and military targets and disregarded the likelihood of civilian casualties.

Experts say some of the strikes amount to war crimes.

"The Saudis have been committing war crimes in Yemen," said Gabor Rona, a professor teaching the laws of war at Columbia University. He pointed to "indiscriminate targeting, that is, attacks in which the attacker makes no effort to distinguish between combatants and civilians." And he warned that American personnel helping the coalition "may also be guilty of war crimes."

Nearly 4,000 civilians have been killed since early 2015 and an estimated 60 percent of them died in airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition, the U.N. says. Around one in three strikes hit civilian targets, according to the Yemen Data Project, an independent group of researchers that has put together a database of more than 8,000 strikes.

The strikes in Abs were notable: The original target was a small checkpoint manned by two rebel fighters on a highway far from any frontline. Three missiles were fired on the highway and one at the hospital. Of 21 people killed, none was a combatant. Moreover, the hospital itself was on the coalition's own computerized list of sites that should not be targeted.

Each strike that day was carried out with a Paveway guided missile system, built by an American company and sold to Saudi Arabia — a sign of how the United States has become mired in Yemen's war. Washington and its allies have sold billions of dollars in weapons to Saudi Arabia for the campaign, and the U.S. military has been providing it with intelligence, satellite imagery and logistical help.

Washington underlines that it does not make decisions on strikes, and it calls on the coalition to investigate any claims of violations. "U.S. security cooperation with Saudi Arabia is not a blank check," National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in October.

The coalition denies neglect, saying it does its utmost to avoid civilian casualties and noting the rebels often operate among civilians.

"This is the fog of war," the coalition's spokesman, Saudi Gen. Ahmed al-Asiri, told The Associated Press when asked if there is a pattern of civilian deaths.

"In war, one plus one doesn't equal two. In war, there are many changes taking place around the clock. In war, there are decisions that should be taken fast," he said from the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

But critics say the American and international backing and lack of independent investigation have given Saudi Arabia and its allies a free rein.

"We believe that the coalition understood that ... it has a green light to commit more massacres in Yemen," said Abdel-Rashed al-Faqeh, the head of Muwatana, one of Yemen's most prominent rights groups.

Saudi Arabia launched the coalition campaign in a bid to restore the internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, after the Houthis overran the capital Sanaa and the north of the country. The Houthis are allied with troops loyal to Hadi's predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was ousted after a 2011 pro-democracy uprising.

Saudi Arabia, which calls the rebels a proxy of its regional rival, Iran, has backed an array of military units and fighters against the Houthis.

The war has been devastating for the country of 24 million. Around 3 million have been driven from their homes, fleeing to other parts of Yemen. The bombardment, fighting and a coalition blockade have fueled widespread hunger.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the U.N. human rights office have also reported possible war crimes by the Houthi rebels, citing their shelling of civilian areas and basing their fighters in schools and other civilian locations.

But the scope of the air campaign has brought widespread destruction. Warplanes have hit medical centers, hospitals, schools, factories, infrastructure and roads, as well as markets, weddings and residential compounds. The Yemen Data Project, for example, documented nearly 60 strikes on medical facilities, most of them in the Houthi heartland in the north, though it says it does not track casualty figures because of how difficult it is to verify events on the ground.

The coalition, which says it investigates claims of civilian casualties, has made nine investigations public. In most cases it said the strikes were against a justified military target.

If any attack typified the rush to hit without regard for civilian casualties, it was the Oct. 8 attack on a funeral in Sanaa.

Working on a tip that top Houthi leadership — and perhaps Saleh himself — would be present, warplanes fired two missiles at the funeral hall. More than 140 people were killed, more than 600 wounded, in one of the deadliest strikes of the campaign.

The funeral, which was for the father of a Houthi government minister was announced on social media beforehand, gathering numerous prominent figures from the rebel movement and Saleh's circles. Several top military and security figures were killed, but the majority of dead were civilians.

After an international outcry, the coalition held an investigation and admitted a mistake, one of only two times it has done so.

But the coalition blamed its Yemeni allies, saying an air operation center in Yemen received information that the hall was filled with Houthi leaders and was a legitimate military target. The center ordered the strike without the coalition headquarters' knowledge, the spokesman of the coalition's investigation team, Mansour al-Mansour, told the AP.

But several Yemeni political and military officials told the AP that the centers do not have the power to order coalition warplanes to strike.

"This is very tempting for a country like Saudi Arabia as they really want to break the resistance," said Michael Knights, a Boston-based Yemen analyst with the Washington Institute. "If they had the chance to do it with one bomb, I am sure they would do it."

But the strike raised multiple concerns in terms of its legality, experts said.

"If you have to kill 140 to get one militiaman, then that is pretty clearly disproportionate and that would be a war crime," said Rona, who has worked as a legal expert with the international Red Cross and Human Rights First.

The U.N. Panel of Experts, tasked with reporting on the Yemen conflict, denounced the use of a "double-tap" attack against the funeral, with a second strike timed moments after the first.

The second missile "almost certainly resulted in more casualties to the already wounded and the first responders," it said, a practice prohibited under international humanitarian law.

As the campaign began in early 2015, the coalition focused on Houthi military targets largely based on information from Hadi's government.

But as time went on, targeting relied more on tips coming from hundreds of agents and informants paid by the coalition.

A senior Yemeni army official close to Hadi's Riyadh-based government said the informants often provide inaccurate information, rely on rumors or call in strikes to get revenge on personal enemies.

He and another top official said decisions on strikes are taken hastily without enough verification or assessment of likely civilian casualties.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the workings of the coalition.

In one instance, a bus carrying men, women and children was struck north of the city of Aden on June 6, 2015, killing 15 people, after a tip that it was carrying Houthi fighters.

A similar incident came 11 days later, again from a tip, that a bus was carrying Houthis. Strikes killed all 16 passengers on a bus in an area called Tor al-Baha northwest of Aden. It turned out the passengers were families heading out for the Muslim Eid holiday.

In both cases, the official said the Yemenis informed the coalition that the dead were all civilians. "They said we will look into it. But of course nothing happened."

Since the air campaign began, the U.S. has authorized some $7.8 billion in military sales to Saudi Arabia. In 2015 alone, Saudi Arabia purchased $25 billion in arms from the U.S., Britain, France and other countries, according to Control Arms, a New York-based group that tracks the arms trade.

The U.S. also been providing intelligence on targets through American military advisers posted at the Joint Combined Planning Cell, or JCPS, in Riyadh.

But the U.S. military never provided "direct or implicit approval of target selection or prosecution," Central Command said in a statement.

U.S. officials say the JCPS sought to limit civilian casualties. It provided coordinates for some 2,300 sites on a "no-target" list, including hospitals, schools and mosques, according to a U.N. official. Such sites would appear on the coalition's computer screens as red marks.

It also advised the coalition to comply with the Law of Armed Conflict and use "precise application of weapons" to avoid civilians, said Lt. Ian M. McConnaughey, U.S. Navy spokesman in Bahrain.

After strikes with reported heavy civilian casualties, Washington has called for the coalition to investigate and repeated its stance that a political solution to Yemen's war must be found.

But the U.S. and its allies have also protected Saudi Arabia from criticism.

In September, a number of EU countries tried to pass a resolution for the U.N. Human Rights Commission to order an international probe into civilian deaths, but the provision failed to get U.S., British and French support.

In June, the U.N. blacklisted the coalition because of child deaths in Yemen, but that move was revoked after Saudi Arabia's allies threatened to cut funding for U.N. programs.

It was only that Washington appeared to try to distance itself.

The U.S. pulled out dozens of personnel from the joint planning cell in June. Pentagon spokesman Christopher Sherwood said fewer than five personnel were needed. After the funeral strike, the U.S. said it would review its assistance further.

Nabeel Khoury, a former U.S. diplomat in Yemen and now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, attributed the reduction to the criticism over civilian deaths.

"Yes, the official line was we are providing intelligence, but this is targeting. The only intelligence Saudis want is for targeting," he told the AP. "In the end, the decision to fire is Saudi, but because of the American support to this war, it is hard to deny U.S. responsibility."
The Saudi-led military coalition and the Houthis (Ansar Allah) arrive at a ceasefire agreement effective as of 17 November 2016, as a result of talks led by US Secretary of State John Kerry with the region's leaders.