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WORLD NEWS Tuesday 20 November 2018

Yemeni rebels say they will halt rocket fire at Saudi Arabia

By AHMED AL-HAJ summer, has been focused
BRIAN ROHAN on capturing the key rebel-
Associated Press held port city of Hodeida,
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Ye- through which almost all of
men’s Shiite rebels said Yemen’s food and desper-
Monday that they will halt ately needed humanitar-
rocket fire into Saudi Ara- ian aid flows.
bia for the sake of peace A U.N. draft resolution circu-
efforts, answering a key lated by Britain on Monday
Saudi demand in the latest urges the warring parties
push to stop the civil war in to relaunch peace talks
the Arab world’s poorest and take urgent steps to
country. But the rebels also address the humanitarian
said they had fired a ballis- crisis. It also calls for an im-
tic missile into Saudi Arabia mediate cease-fire around
overnight in response to an Hodeida.
attempted border incur- Griffiths, the U.N. envoy,
sion and a Saudi airstrike, announced on Friday that
and that they reserved the both sides had agreed
right to respond to attacks. to attend talks in Sweden
For the past three years, “soon” aimed at ending
a U.S.-backed, Saudi-led the conflict. The interna-
coalition has been wag- tionally backed govern-
ing war against the Iran- In this Dec. 4, 2017, file photo, Houthi Shiite fighters chant slogans as they guard a street leading to ment said Monday that
aligned rebels, known as the residence of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in Sanaa, Yemen. it would attend, but also
Houthis, to restore Yemen’s Associated Press insisted the Houthis do so
internationally recognized operations on all fronts in or- lar uprising. Saleh was killed After major setbacks, in- “unconditionally.”
government. The rebels der to achieve peace,” al- in internal fighting between cluding the death of some Saudi Arabia’s King Salman,
say they have long been Houthi said. He mentioned the Houthis and their allies elite officers, it outsourced in an annual policy speech
excluded from that gov- the rockets specifically as last year. The government the ground fighting to local Monday, called Yemen a
ernment and aim to rectify part of a longer statement fled Sanaa in early 2015, troops, including a group “priority” and said he sup-
historic grievances. in which he blamed the and Saudi Arabia, citing trained by the UAE in the ports a U.N.-sponsored
Rebel leader Mohammed United States for being the fears that its nemesis Iran south. political solution to end
Ali al-Houthi announced in main driver behind “the ag- was trying to make inroads Tens of thousands of peo- the war. But he also railed
a statement that the reb- gression” against Yemen. on the Arabian Peninsula, ple are believed to have against the Houthis, say-
els had ordered the ces- The Houthis swept down began launching airstrikes been killed in the war, and ing Saudi Arabia was sup-
sation of rocket and drone from northern Yemen in against the rebels in March two-thirds of Yemen’s 27 porting the Yemeni people
attacks on the Saudis and 2014 and captured the of that year. Riyadh formed million people rely on aid. against the “aggression of
forces loyal to the United capital, Sanaa, with the a coalition of Sunni Arab More than 8 million are at Iranian-backed militias.”
Arab Emirates, a leading help of forces loyal to long- states, including the UAE, risk of starvation in what has The coalition has long de-
coalition member, at the time strongman Ali Abdul- Kuwait, Egypt and Sudan, become the world’s worst manded the rebels with-
request of U.N. envoy Mar- lah Saleh, who had been and launched ground as- humanitarian disaster. draw from all major cities
tin Griffiths. “We are ready forced from power by an saults on several fronts but The latest Saudi-led offen- they have taken, which the
to freeze and stop military Arab Spring-inspired popu- failed to take the capital. sive, which began in the Houthis refuse to do.q