Forty killed in clashes around Yemen's Taiz

Forty people were killed in fighting between Houthi rebels and pro-government forces around southwest Yemen's main city of Taiz, military sources said on Thursday.

Colonel Sadeq al-Hassani, spokesman for the loyalist forces, said that 27 Houthis and 13 pro-government fighters were killed as a rebel offensive aimed at reimposing a siege of the city was repelled on Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday, five Houthis and allied rebels were killed when loyalists backed by Saudi-led Arab coalition airstrikes and artillery fought off a rebel assault in the nearby Kahbub area, pro-government officials said.

The Kahbub fighting centred on a mountainous area overlooking the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait at the entrance to the Red Sea.

The area is guarded by forces from the coalition, which intervened in Yemen in March 2015 to support President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi's government after rebels seized the capital Sanaa.

Fighting has intensified since the collapse in early August of UN-mediated peace talks held in Kuwait.

Ceasefire talks

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that a US official has presented a proposal for a comprehensive Yemeni ceasefire to a Houthi delegation at a meeting in Oman.

The plan, reportedly proposed by US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon, will be taken back to Sanaa for deliberation, a member of the Houthi delegation told Reuters on Thursday.

Shannon was this week in the Omani capital Muscat holding talks with a delegation of Houthis and their allies from the General People's Congress (GPC), the party of deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh, to discuss how to end a war which has killed over 10,000 people and displaced more than three million.

The Houthi negotiating team has been in Oman since the collapse of United Nations-led peace talks last month, after Saudi authorities in control of Yemen's airspace refused to grant the Houthi team access to Sanaa, the Houthi source told Reuters.

However, the team has now been granted permission by Saudi authorities to return to Yemen in a UN airplane.