Yemen army and Shiite rebels clash amid truce offers

The Yemeni army said fighting halted on all fronts on Friday as a truce with Shiite rebels came into force six months after the government ordered a major offensive to try to end a six-year uprising."Calm reigns on all fronts from Saada and Malahidh (in the far north near the Saudi border) to Harf Sufian," further south, one field commander said.Another military source said the air force had halted all of its sorties over the combat zone from the moment the truce went into force at midnight (2100 GMT Thursday).

Yemeni armed forces and Zaidi Shiite rebels fought a fierce battle on Monday in the rugged Malahidh area near the border with Saudi Arabia, an army spokesman said in Sanaa."Violent fighting was taking place in the middle of the day on the Malahidh front after the army took total control of Jebel Khazaen," in the north of the Malahidh region, spokesman Askar Zuail told AFP.Malahidh, in the west of hilly Saada province, stronghold of the rebellion, has been a key battleground since the army launched its "Operation Scorched Earth" against the rebels on August 11.

Shiite rebels prevented Yemeni government troops from deploying along the Saudi border on Saturday in defiance of the terms of a ceasefire, said a member of a committee established to oversee the truce."Deployment of the army along the border is making no headway because of the rebel refusal to conform to the terms of the ceasefire" agreed last week to end six months of fighting, said the source."Rather than dismantle their positions to permit the army deployment, they have simply redeployed those positions in the region of Malahidh," in Saada province, said the source.

Yemeni armed forces and Zaidi Shiite rebels fought a fierce battle on Monday near the border with Saudi Arabia, as the rebels appealed to the Arab League to intervene on their behalf."Heavy fighting was taking place in the middle of the day on the Malahidh front after the army took total control of Jebel Khazaen," in the north of the region, army spokesman Askar Zuail told AFP.Malahidh, in the west of hilly Saada province, stronghold of the rebellion, has been a key battleground since the army launched its "Operation Scorched Earth" against the rebels on August 11.

Forced to flee fighting between Shiite rebels and the army in the north, Yemen's Jews have found a new home in Sanaa, where they benefit from the special protection of President Ali Abdullah Saleh."May God keep him alive," repeats Rabbi Yahya Yussef Moussa, the leader of the Jewish community of Al-Salem, every time he refers to the Yemeni president during an interview with AFP.Al-Salem is close to Saada in northern Yemen, which is the stronghold of the Shiite Zaidi rebels, who are also known as Huthis.

Ten Yemeni soldiers were killed on Sunday when their military helicopter crashed in a mountainous area in the region of Saada, a Shiite rebel stronghold, witnesses said.The witnesses said the helicopter went down at Kahlan mountain, east of the provincial capital Saada, scene of heavy fighting over the past six months between the rebels and the government forces before they reached a shaky truce on Thursday.Sources told AFP that the captain of the helicopter, lieutenant colonel Sadek al-Junaid, was among the dead, adding the cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

Shiite rebels in Yemen said on Saturday they had pulled out of an occupied airport in the north and were arranging to free their Saudi prisoners, in line with a truce agreed with Sanaa."Today, we carried out our withdrawal from the perimeter of the airport of (the city of) Saada, where a plane will land for the first time" since August, rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdel Salam told AFP.He said the insurgents also had began to dismantle roadblocks in the north and were were on the verge of freeing Saudi prisoners captured in border clashes that began last November.

Fresh clashes between Shiite Huthi rebels and army-backed tribes in north Yemen killed 20 people, a tribal official said on Thursday, bringing to at least 69 the death toll in five days of fighting that has rattled a fragile truce."Violent clashes took place overnight between Huthis and the Bin Aziz tribes... leaving 20 dead from both sides," the official said.Yemeni army forces deployed in the area intervened to break up the fighting in Harf Sufyan in the northern Amran province, he added.