Ruling party officials and opposition tribesmen agree to a one-week truce, news agencies report

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is said to have mediated a one-week ceasefire between pro- and anti-government forces in Yemen, amid unconfirmed reports that Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president, was travelling to the kingdom for treatment.

Abdullah intervened shortly after Saleh’s presidential palace compound in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, was hit by a rocket attack on Friday. A government official said 11 people were killed in the shelling.

The Associated Press news agency reported on Saturday that the Saudi-brokered deal was reached between ruling party officials and rebel tribesmen.

Reuters quoted a tribal leader as saying his group was abiding by the truce.

Yemen’s prime minister and other senior officials, including the speakers of both houses of parliament, were taken to Saudi Arabia, where hospitals are better equipped than in Yemen, sources said.

Shells hit a mosque in the presidential palace compound as the officials, including Saleh, were praying.

The condition of Saleh was “of no cause for concern”, a medic told AFP news agency, after officials said he was “lightly wounded in the back of the head”.

Saleh was “stable” and treated at a hospital in Sanaa, the medic said. read more

Other News reports say that Ali Abdullah Saleh is being treated in a Saudi Hospital.