Militants loyal to Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi move a tank from the al-Anad air base ahead of the Houthi advance
The Houthi rebel advance in Yemen has seized the last staging post on the road to Aden in the south of the country, as reports emerge that the president has fled ahead of the Zaydi Shia group’s advance.
Houthi fighters, who consolidated control over the central city of Taiz on Sunday, had by Wednesday taken the strategic air base of Al Anad, located 60km north of Aden’s city centre.
The fall of the base, vital to the defence of Aden, has raised the stakes as the impoverished nation slides towards civil war. Already, there have been reports of heavy gunfire in Aden itself.
Some officials have claimed that President Abd-Rabbu Hadi has already left his residence in Aden, where he had been setting up a government in exile to build a coalition of army and tribal fighters to take on the powerful Iran-allied Houthi forces.
Mr Hadi’s spokesman quashed the rumours that he was flying to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia or sailing to the small city-state of Djibouti, saying the president remained in the city.
The Houthis have announced a bounty of 20m Yemeni riyals ($93,000) for the president’s capture.
US military personnel on Sunday evacuated the air base, which had been used to co-ordinate drone strikes against al-Qaeda, as the security situation deteriorated.
Yemen’s descent into chaos has also hampered US attempts to constrain al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula, a potent arm of the Sunni jihadi group.
The Houthis, who have controlled the Yemen capital, Sana’a, since September, say their advance on Aden is aimed at countering the growing influence of al-Qaeda fighters, who they claim have joined Mr Hadi’s coalition of army loyalists and southern tribes to check the Houthi advance.
Analysts fear that al-Qaeda, a significant force in central and south-eastern Yemen, could become the shock troops of a Sunni defence, deepening the polarising sectarian nature of the conflict.
The Houthi advance started after last week’s suicide bombings of two mosques in Sana’a, which caused hundreds of deaths and casualties among Zaydi Shia worshippers.
Mr Hadi has called for the Sunni Gulf states, which are concerned about Iran’s growing strategic reach via their proxies in the Arab world, to intervene in an attempt to halt the Houthi advance.
Saudi officials have said they would take the “necessary measures” if peace efforts, led by UN envoy Jamal Benomar in Sana’a, failed.
Qatar has sought to get key Yemeni power brokers to meet in Doha to forge a peace agreement, but so far military action has trumped diplomacy.
Reports have emerged that Saudi Arabia is moving heavy weaponry towards its southern border with Yemen, which adjoins the Houthis’ northern power base.
Gulf officials regard Iran’s alleged interference in Yemen, right in the Gulf’s backyard, as a step too far after Tehran’s expansion into Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
However, some Gulf Arabs are also cautioning against getting dragged into direct intervention in the dangerous cauldron of Yemeni politics.
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