Aden: Yemeni fighters backed by Saudi-led air strikes battled to take back northern suburbs of Aden from Al Houthi opponents on Tuesday, residents said, a day after completing their capture of the centre of the strategic port city.
The country’s dominant Al Houthi militia and its army allies traded artillery fire with Saudi-backed forces in the Dar Sa’ad and Al Alam areas as Arab warplanes bombed the Iran-allied group.
Local anti-Al Houthi forces broke months of stalemate in Aden last week by suddenly seizing the airport and then driving Al Houthis out of their last redoubt in the west of the city.
Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen’s war in March in an effort to stop Al Houthi forces taking Aden, the last city nominally controlled by exiled President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s government. Riyadh says it wants to restore Hadi to power in the capital Sana’a, which Al Houthis seized in September.
The United Nations said on Tuesday that over 3,600 people have died during the almost four months of air raids and civil war in Yemen. The conflict has deepened suffering in the already impoverished nation, especially in Aden which has seen heavy combat.
An Al Houthi artillery barrage killed 43 people and wounded 173 on Sunday in Dar Saad, underscoring the fragile grip of the anti-Al Houthi forces.
“We’re in an operation to complete the extension of our control over the city of Aden and to confront the Al Houthi presence at its entrances,” a leader in a local militia said by phone.
Hadi’s administration and the Arab military alliance are seeking to secure the city and make it a base from which to challenge Al Houthi control over most of the rest of Yemen.
The president appointed a new governor for the city on Monday and sources among the local fighters said a technical team from the UAE had arrived to repair the city’s battle-damaged international airport.
Officials in the anti-Al Houthi forces say their offensive had been planned for weeks and benefited from training and arms deliveries from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The UAE said yesterday that one of its officers had been killed while taking part in the Yemen campaign. The death of another UAE soldier was announced last week.
Militia officials said two ships arrived in Aden’s port yesterday, one from the UN World Food Programme carrying 4,000 litres of fuel and another from the UAE bringing food, in the biggest aid delivery to the city in around two months.
Imports to Aden’s port terminals have stopped almost completely since fighting began, and residents say Al Houthi forces are preventing food, fuel and medicine from being brought into the city.
Meanwhile, a car bombing claimed by Daesh killed four people near a Shiite mosque in the rebel-controlled Yemeni capital Sana’a, Al Houthis said.
Children were among eight people wounded in the Monday evening blast, the rebel-controlled Saba news agency said.
The extremists have carried out a string of deadly attacks against Shiite targets in Yemen since March.
