Yemen's rebels accept UN resolution calling for ceasefire

As political violence reaches a crescendo in Yemen, even celebration is increasingly blood-soaked. In the second wedding attack in two weeks, two airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s government ripped through a triple wedding party in rebel-held Sanban late Wednesday, killing at least 13 and wounding another 25. The brides were not harmed, but all three bridegrooms died in the airstrike, town residents told Reuters.

“I saw bodies lying in the yard, decapitated, charred,” Tawfiq al-Sanabani, a relative and wedding guest, told The New York Times.

Yemeni officials say the strike targeted the home of the wedding’s host, a tribal leader openly supportive of Shiite Muslim Houthi rebels.

But the Saudi-led coalition denied participation in the airstrikes: “We did not conduct any operation in [Sanban] … No strikes there, definitely,” coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed al-Asiri told the AFP news agency.

Just one week ago, the Arab alliance shot down responsibility for another wedding airstrike in Yemen, an attack that attracted international criticism and claimed more than 130 lives in the single deadliest event of the Arab nation’s civil war.

The conflict in Yemen pits President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, a U.S. ally, against the Iranian-backed Houthis, who are loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Last March, after a rapid rebel advance caused Hadi to flee to Saudi Arabia, a Saudi-led and U.S.-backed coalition began launching airstrikes against the Houthis.

Wednesday, in a further blow to the rebels, Yemeni government forces re-captured the town of Sirwah. The victory is significant because Sirwah was the final rebel outpost in key Marib province, according to Yemeni army Col. Ayed al-Moradi.

In the face of skyrocketing civilian casualties and Saudi coalition victories, the rebels are beginning to back down.

The day of the second wedding airstrike, the United Nations announced the Houthis had accepted a Security Council resolution calling for ceasefire. The resolution, composed in mid-April, urges all Yemeni parties, particularly the Shiite rebels, to halt violence, withdraw forces from areas they have seized, relinquish actions undermining the government’s exclusive authority, and “refrain from any provocation or threats to neighboring states,” which would include using a bordering nation to stockpile missiles and weapons. The resolution imposed an arms embargo on Houthi leaders and their key allies, former president Saleh and his son.

A UN special envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, is traveling to the region to observe the Yemeni government’s response to the rebel group’s surrender and try “to gel what is being said into something a little more concrete,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

But peace talks in Yemen have a record of failure. It has proven nearly impossible to arrange a humanitarian pause, even to deliver aid.

Since the rebel Muslim group seized Sanaa last year, the UN estimates airstrikes and rebel attacks have killed nearly 5,000 people, almost half of them civilians. And Yemen now teeters on the edge of a humanitarian crisis as war in the Arab world’s poorest country threatens to unleash a nation-wide famine.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.