Yemen gives rebels a cease-fire framework

Yemen's government has presented northern rebels with a detailed cease-fire agreement, a senior official said Saturday, in a bid to end the six-year conflict.

After years of sporadic fighting with the militants, Yemen has come under international pressure to quickly draw a close to the conflict and free up resources to confront a separate threat from an al-Qaida offshoot that has set up operations there over the past year.

Last week, the Shiite northern rebels accepted a conditional cease-fire first issued by the government in September. That plan called on the militants to disarm, free hostages and clear mountain hideouts.

The government dismissed the rebel offer, and said it would halt military operations against the militants only "under a certain framework." It also added a fresh demand that the rebels vow not to attack Saudi Arabia.

But on Saturday, presidential adviser Abdel-Karim al-Iryani said a go-between had delivered the rebels with what he called a "timetable" for a truce.

He said if rebel leader Abdel-Malek al-Hawthi "signs this document and accepts its mechanisms, the war will stop immediately."

The proposal calls for the formation of five committees _ made up of rebel and government representatives _ that would implement the cease-fire, al-Iryani said. The committee on border security would also include Saudi officials.

Neighboring Saudi Arabia was drawn into the conflict in November after rebels crossed the border and killed two Saudi border guards. Some 133 Saudi soldiers have died in the fighting.

The rebels announced a unilateral cease-fire with Saudi Arabia in late January. However, the Saudis responded cautiously to the rebel announcement, and demanded militants pullback from border positions and return five missing soldiers.

Several earlier cease-fires quickly disintegrated, mainly because the rebels said their demands were not addressed.

The militants say their community of Shiite Muslims from the Zaydi sect suffer discrimination and neglect and that the government has allowed ultraconservative Sunni extremists too strong a voice in the country. Hard-line Sunnis consider Shiites heretics.

In San'a on Saturday, a security court sentenced the northern rebel leader's brother, Yehia al-Hawthi, in abstentia to 15 years in prison on charges of supporting the rebellion. Yehia al-Hawthi has been living in Germany for the past three years.