CAIRO — The Saudi-led military coalition declared a 48-hour ceasefire in Yemen on Saturday, on the condition that Shiite rebels abide by it and allow humanitarian assistance into besieged cities, particularly the city of Taiz.

However, minutes after it went into effect, activists in Taiz said that rebel shelling continued in the city while a rebel-affiliated military spokesman said that there was no halt of fighting.

Col. Sharaf Loqman, a military spokesman, told The Associated Press that the fighting hasn't stopped at any of the front-lines. He said that the rebels support a full cessation of hostilities, but that the reality at the moment is, "all parties are engaged in fighting."

The Saudi news agency SPA carried a statement from the coalition that said the truce would take effect at 12 p.m. Yemeni time on Saturday and that it could be renewed. The coalition warned the rebels, known as Houthis, against any sort of military movement.

The ceasefire comes at a time that forces loyal to the Saudi-backed, internationally-recognized government have made advances in Taiz, which has been besieged by the rebels for the past year.

The coalition has demanded that the Houthis send their representatives to meet with a de-escalation committee based in a southern Saudi city, in order to make security and military arrangements to end rebel control over several cities in the north — including the capital, Sanaa.

While the coalition stressed that the ceasefire is aimed at paving the way for peace, it didn't elaborate on whether it's accepting the U.N.-brokered peace plan — which sidelines President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi and gives the rebels a share of power.

The truce also comes two days after an earlier plan for a U.S.-brokered ceasefire faltered. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who met with Houthi representatives in Oman this week, set Nov. 17 as the beginning of the ceasefire. The plan was immediately rejected by Hadi's government, which accused Kerry of striking a unilateral deal. The coalition made no comment on Kerry's announcement.

The conflict in Yemen has divided the country into rival regions with the northern — predominated by Shiites — under rebel control while the south — mostly Sunnis — is under the coalition's control.

The coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 at the request of Hadi, who was forced to flee the country when the Houthis joined ranks with forces loyal to the ousted Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and descended from their northern enclave — seizing the capital and pushing southward.

The coalition imposed a blockade on Yemen, and the airstrikes along with ground fighting have left over 4,000 civilians dead and tens of thousands wounded. The conflict has forced 3 million people to flee their homes and pushed the Arab world's poorest nation to the brink of famine. </s> 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> CAIRO (AP) — The Saudi-led military coalition has declared a 48-hour ceasefire in Yemen, on the condition that Shiite rebels abide by it and allow humanitarian assistance into cities under their control.

The Saudi news agency SPA carried a statement from the coalition early Saturday. The truce will take into effect at 12 p.m. Yemeni time on Saturday, the statement said, and it could be renewed. The coalition warns the rebels, known as Houthis, against any sort of military movement.

The ceasefire comes as forces loyal to the Saudi-backed, internationally-recognized government have made advances in the key western city of Taiz, which has been besieged by the rebels for the past year. </s> The cessation of hostilities was due to start at 12 p.m. ( 4 a.m. ET ) it said.

The news agency said the ceasefire was "extendable" as long as Houthi militias and forces loyal to them abide by it.

The aim is to allow the entry of humanitarian aid to besieged areas, the news agency said, particularly Taz City. But coalition forces will respond to any military movements from the opposing side, it said.

The truce is a response to efforts by the United Nations and the international community to bring peace to Yemen, the SPA said.

Ceasefires have previously been declared in Yemen, but each time hostilities have resumed. Approximately 10,000 Yemenis have died and millions are in need of aid in a 20-month conflict that has been dubbed the " forgotten war ," because it has occurred in the shadows of the Syrian conflict. US State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters Tuesday that Secretary of State John Kerry had met earlier with members of the Houthi delegation in Muscat, Oman, in a push to make progress on resolving the conflict. The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, had indicated a willingness to abide by the terms of a cessation of hostilities established in April, she said, provided other parties also stick to it. "We understand the Saudi-led coalition has also expressed a willingness to return to the cessation. Additionally, the Houthis accepted the UN-drafted roadmap as a basis for negotiations to end the conflict to work for the establishment of a new national unity government," she said. As of Tuesday, the Yemeni government had not agreed to the ceasefire, Trudeau indicated. But it now appears to be on board, with the Saudi Press Agency reporting that the truce was declared on the basis of Saudi Arabia's King Salman receiving a message from Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi. The war in Yemen began in early 2015 when Houthi rebels -- a minority Shia group from the north of the country -- drove out the US-backed government and took over the capital, Sanaa. The country has become a proxy battleground between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Millions at risk of starvation in Yemen Millions at risk of starvation in Yemen A Saudi-led coalition, made up of several Arab countries, began a military campaign in March 2015 aimed at restoring the Yemeni government and preventing the Houthis and forces loyal to deposed President Ali Abdullah Saleh from taking power. In August, peace talks failed, prompting an increase in airstrikes in the weeks that followed. Last month, the World Food Programme warned that millions were at risk of starvation in Yemen, saying "an entire generation could be crippled by hunger." UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien also gave a strongly worded statement to the UN Security Council at the end of October in which he urged an immediate cessation of hostilities to save a generation of Yemenis from "humanitarian catastrophe" and conflict. </s> LONDON -- The United States and Britain expressed hope Sunday that a cease-fire can begin in Yemen in the coming days, as a flurry of diplomatic negotiations focused on the impoverished, war-torn country.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said mediation is ongoing involving Yemen's exiled, internationally recognized government and the Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, who control much of the country.

Negotiators "are calling today for the implementation of a cease-fire to be implemented by the parties as rapidly as possible, meaning Monday, Tuesday, but moving very rapidly," Kerry said Sunday. "This is the time to implement a cease-fire unconditionally, and then move to the negotiating table."

Key players of both parties -- Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, the rebels' lead negotiator and the Saudi Arabian foreign minister -- were said to have agreed to the arrangement.

The United States backs Hadi's government, as well as a Saudi-led coalition that has battled the rebels since last year.

After the meeting in London, Kerry, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the United Nations' special envoy to Yemen, called for an immediate cease-fire to begin in the coming days. Britain has been under pressure to find a solution to the conflict because it's a key supplier of weapons to Saudi Arabia. In the last nine months of 2015, Saudi Arabia accounted for 40 percent of Britain's military sales.

"The world has had enough of the conflict now in Yemen," Johnson said. "The road map offers a genuine way forward for both sides if they will take that opportunity."

The war has been largely overshadowed by the conflict against the Islamic State militant group elsewhere in the Middle East, though rights groups have increasingly criticized the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in recent months, as well as the United States as the coalition's primary weapons supplier. One of those airstrikes -- the bombing of a funeral hall in the capital, Sanaa, on Oct. 8 -- killed at least 140 people.

The U.S. has also in the past week fired Tomahawk missiles after the targeting of a naval warship by Houthi rebels.

In the latest U.S. Navy report, a group of American warships in the Red Sea on Saturday night "had indications of a possible inbound missile threat and deployed appropriate defensive measures," said Capt. Paula Dunn, a spokesman for U.S. Navy Forces Central Command. She said in a statement that all ships and sailors were safe, without elaborating.

An American defense official said Sunday that one of the ships picked up on radar what sailors believed to be missiles being fired out of Yemen at night. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the possible threat that were not yet made public.

The Houthis and their allies did not immediately comment.

The Red Sea and the nearby Bab el-Mandeb strait, a crucial choke point for international shipping and crude oil, has been the scene of what the U.S. describes as at least two missile attacks from rebel-held territory in Yemen. The Tomahawk missiles -- the first shots fired by the U.S. in anger in the conflict -- destroyed mobile radar positions.

The Houthi-controlled Saba News Agency has run dispatches denying that rebels fired on American warships.

Yemen has been at war since September 2014, when the Houthis swept into Sanaa. The Saudi-led coalition of Sunni Arab nations launched a campaign against the Houthis in March 2015.

The U.N. and rights groups estimate the conflict has killed at least 9,000 people and displaced nearly 3 million more.

Information for this article was contributed by Bradley Klapper and Jon Gambrell of The Associated Press and by John Ainger of Bloomberg News. </s> LONDON (Reuters) - The United States and Britain called on Sunday for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Yemen to end violence between Iran-backed Houthis and the government, which is supported by Gulf states.

A Saudi-led campaign in Yemen has come under heavy criticism since an air strike on a funeral gathering in the Yemeni capital Sanaa that killed 140 people according to a United Nations’ estimate and 82 according to the Houthis.

On Saturday, a U.S. admiral said a destroyer had again been targeted in the Red Sea in an apparent failed missile attack launched from the coast of Yemen.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said if Yemen’s opposing sides accepted the ceasefire then the special envoy to the U.N., Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, would work through the details and announce when and how it would take effect.

“This is the time to implement a ceasefire unconditionally and then move to the negotiating table,” Kerry told reporters.

“We cannot emphasize enough today the urgency of ending the violence in Yemen,” he said after meeting British foreign minister, Boris Johnson, and other officials in London.

Kerry said they were calling for the implementation of the ceasefire “as rapidly as possible, meaning Monday, Tuesday”.

The UN’s special envoy said he had been in contact with the Houthi’s lead negotiator and the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. He also said he hoped for “clearer plans” for a ceasefire in the coming days

Johnson said the conflict in Yemen was “causing increasing international concern; the fatalities that we’re seeing there are unacceptable”.

“There should be a ceasefire and the U.N. should lead the way in calling for that ceasefire.”

Their call came after meetings in London with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and senior UAE officials.

Slideshow (7 Images)

Kerry met Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on Saturday in Switzerland on the sidelines of Syria talks.

“It is a crisis now of enormous proportions with an increasing economic, increasing humanitarian and health crisis, and obviously the military components are troubling to everybody,” Kerry said.

He added that the release of two American prisoners by Yemen’s Houthi and the evacuation of Yemeni civilians wounded in a Saudi airstrike were “an important humanitarian gesture by the Saudis to address the humanitarian concern”.
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.