A fighter loyal to Yemen’s exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi stands on a tank in Yemen’s second city of Aden.
Reuters/Aden
Yemeni forces backed up by Saudi-led coalition air strikes have recaptured positions on the outskirts of Aden used by the Houthi group to fire rockets into the southern port city, local officials said yesterday.
Forces loyal to exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which retook Aden from the Iran-allied Houthis on July 17, seized the town of Muthalath al-Ilm, at Aden’s eastern entrance.
The fighters, who call themselves the Southern Resistance forces, also recaptured neighbourhoods to the north of Aden from the Houthis, including Ya’wala, Al-Basateen and Qariat al-Falahi, the officials said.
They said the two sides were still fighting in al-Houta, the capital of the southern province of Lahj, 30km from Aden, where clashes have persisted for several days.
Saudi air raids also targeted locations across the south, including Dhalea and Aland airbase, Houthi media Saba News reported quoting a security source at Yemen’s interior ministry.
An Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia has been carrying out air strikes in Yemen since March in an effort to drive back the Houthis, who are aligned with former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and fight alongside his forces.
The four-month-old war is rooted in political strains that escalated last year when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and pushed out Hadi, a US ally. Nearly 4,000 people have been killed and more than 1.2mn displaced, the UN says.
A five-day truce put forward by the Saudi side to allow delivery of aid that began on Sunday ended almost immediately, with resistance fighters accusing the Houthis flouting the deal.
More than 6mn people in Yemen are on the verge of starvation, Oxfam had said on Tuesday.
Residents and local officials said yesterday four suspected members of the Al Qaeda affiliated Ansar Al Shariah militant group were killed in an overnight air strike by an unmanned aircraft, or drone, in the southern province of Abyan.
