Sana’a: Yemeni government forces and rebels were engaged in fierce fighting as a 48-hour ceasefire declared by the pro-government Arab coalition approached its end on Monday, military officials said.
Fifteen rebels and nine government troops were killed in clashes overnight in and around the flashpoint southwestern city of Taiz, military and medical sources said.
Four civilians were killed and 11 others wounded in rebel bombing of government-held neighbourhoods, the sources said.
Early on Monday, forces loyal to President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi attacked Iran-backed Al Houthi militants and their allies on the western outskirts of Al Houthi-besieged Taiz, military officials said.
The offensive, coming hours before the scheduled end of the ceasefire at midday, targeted an air defence base, the officials said, while witnesses reported loud explosions.
Four of the Al Houthi casualties were killed in an air strike by the Saudi-led coalition, which has been fighting the rebels since March 2015, when insurgents expanded their control and forced Hadi into exile.
Yemen security officials say Al Houthi rebels had blocked humanitarian aid from reaching needy residents in Taiz.
The officials also said 18 trucks from the World Food Programme were prevented from leaving the city of Ibb, north of Taiz, on Sunday.
Coalition warplanes have also hit rebel positions in Nehm, north of rebel-held capital Sana’a, and in the Al Houthi’s heartland in Saada province, witnesses said.
Warplanes from the coalition also conducted numerous sorties over Sana’a early on Monday.
Coalition spokesman Major General Ahmad Assiri has previously said that his forces had the right to respond to Al Houthi violations.
Elsewhere, Yemeni forces said they repelled a rebel attack on their positions in Sarwah, in Marib province, east of the capital.
The ceasefire began on Saturday following an intervention by US Secretary of State John Kerry who met Al Houthi rebel representatives in Oman and urged Hadi’s government to sign up.
Assiri said the truce could be extended if there was a “complete halt to the violations” he attributed to the rebels.
He accused the rebels of 180 violations in the first 10 hours of the truce.
A spokesman for renegade Yemeni troops allied with the rebels accused the other side of more than 100 violations of the ceasefire.
Yemen’s devastating conflict erupted in 2014 when the rebels overran Sana’a and other parts of the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country.
The United Nations says more than 7,000 people have been killed and nearly 37,000 wounded in Yemen since March 2015, when the coalition intervened on behalf of the government.
On Sunday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the ceasefire could “create the conditions for advancing the peace talks”.
