North Yemen Calm After Ceasefire

The Yemeni army said fighting halted on all fronts on Friday as a truce with Houthi fighters 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.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced the ceasefire late on Thursday and the fighters' leader Abdul Malak al-Huthi ordered his fighters to respect it.

Army commanders said they had seen rebel fighters start work on removing the roadblocks they have maintained on some of the trunk routes through the northern mountains blocking government traffic.

The six-point truce requires the fighters to reopen three major routes in the first stage of implementation: the road between Saada, Harf Sufian and the capital Sanaa; the road from Saada west to Malahidh, and the road from Saada east to Al-Jawf.

The last round of fighting erupted in Burkat al-Shamsi district late on Wednesday.

Separate clashes broke out around the same time in the Al-Uqab suburb of Saada town, killing seven soldiers and 11 fighters.

The government had originally set five terms for a truce -- withdrawal from government buildings, return of weapons seized from the security forces, freeing of all prisoners including Saudis, and abandoning captured army posts, as well as the reopening of roads.

But agreement on the truce was delayed after the government added the sixth condition -- a rebel pledge not to attack Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis joined the fighting in November under pretext of halting infiltration of Houthi fighters to its border area. They claimed Houthi fighters killed a border guard and occupied two small villages.