Yemeni rebels seized the center of the southern port city of Aden from forces loyal to the president, defying a week of aerial bombardment by a coalition of Sunni-led nations.
Shiite Houthi fighters backed by tanks captured the Khour Maksar district housing foreign consulates and southern Yemen’s international airport, Labib Al-Abd, the leader of a local militia loyal to President Abdurabuh Mansur Hadi, said by phone.
The advance into the city’s center poses a new challenge to the coalition’s efforts to influence the fighting on the ground. Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s neighbor and the president’s chief ally, assembled the alliance last week to protect Aden, where Hadi had fled from the Houthi onslaught. As his last stronghold in the key port crumbled, the president left the country and is now in Saudi Arabia.
A Saudi border guard was killed and 10 others were wounded near the southern border with Yemen after they came under heavy fire from mountains across the frontier, the official Saudi Press Agency reported, citing an unidentified interior ministry spokesman.
Saudi Arabia has strengthened its military positions along its border with Yemen. Ahmed Asseri, a Saudi military officer and spokesman for the coalition, said this week that the kingdom has enough forces to protect its 1,100- mile (1,770-kilometer) frontier against threats from the Houthis.
The rebels have set up checkpoints outside Aden, according to Fawaz Sharabi, a local resident. “The situation is really terrible,” Sharabi said in an interview. There is “no fuel and no water and all streets are full of gunmen.”
Airstrikes intensified on roads leading into the city and areas outside it where Houthis are based, Asseri said Wednesday. The air offensive has targeted other areas as well, including the capital, Sana’a. Coalition battleships are also monitoring seaports and islands in Yemeni waters, Asseri said.
Aid organizations have raised alarms about the mounting civilian death toll. In a statement Thursday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said airstrikes on a refugee camp in northern Yemen on March 30 “raised grave concerns about violations of the laws of war.”
Oxfam, a U.K.-based relief agency, called for an immediate cease-fire, saying in a statement that air strikes will result in food and fuel shortages and a worsening humanitarian crisis.
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1GP2siP
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