Riyadh: Saudi Arabia dismissed Iranian calls for an end to its air strikes on neighbouring Yemen on Sunday, saying Tehran should not interfere in the conflict.
Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies began air strikes against Iranian-allied Al Houthi militia fighters in Yemen more than two weeks ago, to try and prevent them making further advances.
“How can Iran call for us to stop the fighting in Yemen ... We came to Yemen to help the legitimate authority, and Iran is not in charge of Yemen,” Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal said. Meanwhile on the ground, at least 20 people were killed and several others injured when an air strike of the Saudi-led coalition forces targeted a military camp in Yemen’s southern province of Taiz on Sunday morning, a government official said.
“The Saudi-led air strike bombed the headquarters of the 22nd Armoured Brigade controlled by Al Houthi militiamen in Janad area of Taiz, killing at least 20 people and injuring a number of others, including civilians,” the official of Taiz’s local government told Xinhua news agency.
The air strike caused heavy material damages inside the military camp and partially destroyed some nearby houses in the area, the government source said.
Ahmad Walid, a resident in Janad area of Taiz, where the Saudi-led air strike took place, told Xinhua that “a number of missiles also struck a small village and a poultry farm next to the military camp”.
In the southern port city of Aden, intense fighting between pro-Al Houthi militiamen and Popular Committee fighters linked to Yemen’s President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi continued in several areas across the province.
Witnesses told Xinhua that warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition forces pounded on Sunday some Al Houthi-controlled sites in and around Hadi’s Presidential Palace in Aden’s neighbourhood of Cirater, with no immediate reports of casualties.
Al Houthis backed by armoured army units took control over Hadi’s Presidential Palace after fierce fighting that left hundreds of people either dead or injured from both sides.
Thousands of families evacuated from Aden as a result of the ongoing armed clashes in several neighbourhoods of the city with intensified air and naval bombings by the Saudi-led coalition forces.
A number of Yemeni government officials in Aden warn of an environmental catastrophe as bodies are scattered across the main streets for days, without any garbage collection.
The security situation in Yemen has sharply deteriorated since early March when conflicts erupted in several provinces in the country’s southern regions.
A coalition led by Saudi Arabia started from March 26 air strikes on Al Houthi targets in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a and other cities, saying the multinational action is to protect Hadi’s legitimacy and force Al Houthis to retreat from cities they have seized since September 2014.
