SANAA — Shiite rebels said on Saturday they have pulled out of an occupied airport in northern Yemen and were preparing to release Saudi prisoners in line with a truce agreed with the Sanaa government.
"Today, we carried out our withdrawal from the perimeter of the airport of (the city of) Saada, where a plane will land for the first time" since August, rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdel Salam told AFP.
He said the insurgents had also started to dismantle roadblocks in the north and were preparing to free Saudi prisoners captured in border clashes that broke out in November.
Salam said "measures are underway to hand over the Saudi prisoners to a mediator, Ali Nasser Kersha," a tribal official from the northern province of Saada. He did not give further details.
In Riyadh, Deputy Defence Minister Prince Khaled bin Sultan said the rebels had been given until Sunday to release five Saudis held captive.
"He gave them 48 hours from yesterday," the prince's aide General Ibrahim al-Malek told AFP, without specifying what action Riyadh would take if the prisoners were not released by the deadline.
The Zaidi Shiite rebels, also known as Huthis after their late leader, agreed to stop fighting earlier this week after they accepted ceasefire terms laid down by Sanaa.
Calm prevailed in the north on Saturday, the second day of a shaky truce that temporarily broke down only hours after it went into effect late on Thursday, both sides said.
"The situation is calm on all fronts in Saada province," which straddles Saudi Arabia and lies at the centre of a six-year-old Zaidi rebellion, said one military source.
"But the calm is precarious," said another source, referring to the latest in a string of truces over the years that have broken down.
A spokesman for rebel leader Abdul Malak al-Huthi confirmed there was no fighting, saying the "ceasefire is being respected and the situation is developing positively."
The ceasefire is the government's latest bid in a six-month campaign to crush a rebellion that began in 2004, killing thousands and leaving 250,000 homeless in recurring fighting.
The latest round of clashes erupted on August 11, when government forces launched "Operation Scorched Earth" -- an all-out offensive to stamp out the uprising.
Only hours after the new truce went into effect at midnight on Thursday, Yemen's army said the rebels had killed four soldiers in a string of attacks.
On Saturday, however, the rebel spokesman downplayed those incidents, saying "those were minimal violations that it is possible to overcome."
Rebels also denied a charge by General Mohammad Abdullah al-Qussi, the military commander of Saada province, who said the rebels had opened fire on his car in an assassination bid on Friday.
The six-point truce requires the rebels to reopen three major routes in the first stage: 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.
It also calls for a rebel withdrawal from government buildings, the return of arms seized from security forces, release of all prisoners including Saudis, handover of captured army posts, and a pledge not to attack Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis joined the fighting in November after accusing the rebels of killing a border guard and occupying two small villages.
Saudi ground troops and aircraft repeatedly engaged the rebels in operations which the rebels said continued even after their fighters had withdrawn from all Saudi territory occupied in the fighting.
"It is very quiet now" on the border, a Saudi military official said on Saturday, declining to be named.
Iran's foreign ministry, meanwhile, expressed support for the ceasefire as "a step toward strengthening national unity in Yemen and establishment of security, economic and social progress" in the country.
Yemeni authorities have accused the rebels of seeking to restore the Zaidi Shiite imamate that ruled in Sanaa until its overthrow in a 1962 republican coup that sparked eight years of civil war.
The rebels, who complain of economic and political discrimination against the north's Zaidis, have repeatedly denied the charge as well as accusations of military support from Shiite Iran.
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