Anti-Houthi fighters score more gains in south Yemen
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Anti-Houthi fighters score more gains in south Yemen
ADEN (Reuters) - Fighters loyal to Yemen's deposed president seized about 10 southern villages from Houthi forces on Tuesday, pursuing their offensive a day after capturing the country's biggest air base, residents and loyalist sources said.
Clashes took place across the southern province of Lahj, most of which is now back in the hands of the Saudi-backed loyalist forces.
Militias siding with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who fled Yemen for Saudi Arabia in March, and army units trained and equipped by Gulf Arab countries have made advances against the Iranian-allied Houthis in recent weeks.
Yemeni military sources said the United Arab Emirates had sent in dozens of tanks and heavy artillery pieces to the fighters in recent days, though a spokesman for the Arab coalition denied media reports that it had sent ground troops.
Boosted by Saudi-led air strikes, the fighters drove the Houthis from the port city of Aden last month then pushed northward and recaptured the Al-Anad air base from Houthi forces on Monday after besieging it for days.
"The next step for the popular resistance and army forces after liberating Aden is the clearing of the provinces of Abyan and Lahj," a commander in the anti-Houthi forces told Reuters.
Militia sources said a thousand Yemeni fighters trained in Saudi Arabia and the UAE arrived in Aden on Monday.
Yemen's Arab neighbors intervened in the country in March to halt the advance of the Houthis - Shi'ite Muslims from the north whose fighters seized the capital Sanaa in September and took over most of the country.
The Sunni Muslim Gulf states say the Houthis are a proxy for their arch rival, Shi'ite Iran, and aim to restore Hadi to power in Sanaa. Continued...
Anti-Houthi fighters score more gains in south Yemen | Top News | Reuters
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U.N. envoy to Yemen says warring parties increasingly open to peace plan
The U.N. envoy to Yemen believes his plan to end a four-month conflict that has triggered a humanitarian crisis in Yemen is increasingly gaining acceptance among the warring parties, a U.N. spokesman said on Tuesday.
U.N.-led talks in June between northern Houthi rebel fighters and supporters of the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi failed to end the war, in which the United Nations says nearly 2,000 civilians have been killed.
A stand-off between the two sides escalated in late March when a Saudi-led Arab coalition began a campaign of air strikes against the Houthis and their allies, loyalists of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
On a visit to Cairo, U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed met the secretary-general of the General People's Congress (GPC) party, which supports Saleh, and Nabil Elaraby, the secretary-general of the Arab League, U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said.
"He feels his plan is gaining more and more acceptance among the parties. Riyadh has a indicated positive reaction towards the plan, the GPC is considering it positively," he said.
The five days of talks in Geneva produced agreement in principle on a ceasefire and withdrawal of armed forces. The talks broke up before a final deal could be agreed, but Ould Cheikh Ahmed said he remained optimistic.
U.N. envoy to Yemen says warring parties increasingly open to peace plan | Reuters
