200 Yemen rebels to be freed amid peace push: Saudi-led coalition

ASaudi-ledmilitarycoalitionsaid Tuesday it will release200Yemenirebelsand permit some flights from the insurgent-held capital Sanaa, as efforts to end the nearly five-year conflict gain momentum.

The initiatives coincide with a lull in Huthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and come after a senior official in Riyadh this month said it had an "open channel" with the Iran-alignedrebels.

Patients needing medical care will be allowed to be flown out of Sanaa airport, which has been closed to commercial flights since 2016,coalitionspokesman Turki al-Maliki said in a statement released by the official Saudi Press Agency.

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Thecoalitionhas decided "to release200prisoners of the Huthi militia" and will facilitate flights from Sanaa for "people in need of medical care" in cooperation with the World Health Organisation, the statement added.

The decision was hailed by the Huthis, with senior leader Mohammed Ali al-Huthi calling for a "mass reception" to welcome the releasedrebels.

"We welcome thecoalitiondecision... (and) call for them to end torture and abuse until all detainees and prisoners are freed," al-Huthi, a senior figure in therebels' political leadership, said on Twitter.

TheSaudi-ledcoalitionlaunched a military intervention inYemenin 2015 in support of the country's internationally recognised government.

It reportedly hoped for a quick win against theHuthis, but instead waded into a quagmire that has cost it billions of dollars and sparked a humanitarian catastrophe that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Riyadh now appears buoyed by a power-sharing agreement it brokered earlier this month in a separate conflict betweenYemen's internationally recognised government and southern separatists, which observers said could pave the way for a widerpeacedeal in the multi-faceted war.

Further raising hopes, a senior official in Riyadh subsequently said the Saudis have established an "open channel" with the Huthirebels.

"We don't close our doors with the Huthis," the official, who declined to be named, told reporters.

'Something is changing'

Yemen, in the grip of what the UN has termed the world's worst humanitarian crisis, is widely seen as a proxy battlefront between Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia and its Shiite rival Iran.

Tuesday's development "is positive proof that the Saudi-Huthi talks are real and having at least a limited tangible impact," Hussein Ibish, a scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, told AFP.

"This is more bad news for therebels' Iranian backers."

The development follows a lull in recent weeks after a spike in rebel missile and drone attacks over the summer launched from Yemeni territory on Saudi cities.

Last Friday, UN envoy Martin Griffiths said the rate ofcoalitionairstrikes had sharply fallen over the past two weeks, in an apparent sign that "something is changing inYemen".

In a sign of the limits to the new mood, however, air raids on Monday by theSaudi-ledcoalitionkilled eight Huthirebelsnear the key western port of Hodeidah, according to local officials.

Yemen's warring parties agreed under a deal brokered in Sweden last December to exchange 15,000 prisoners, but the accord has not been fully implemented.

Thecoalitionfreed seven Huthi prisoners in January, and therebelsreleased 290coalitionfighters in September.

The Huthis hold Sanaa while theSaudi led-militarycoalitioncontrolsYemen's maritime borders and airspace.

Last year, woundedrebelswere flown out of Sanaa for treatment, in what was seen as a key step ahead of the Decemberpeacetalks.