Yemeni Vice President Khaled Bahah, a politician respected across the country’s spectrum of factions, called on Houthi forces to stop advances on cities and heed a UN Security Council demand for an end to fighting, local media reported.
Baha’s comments, made during a visit to the Yemeni embassy in Saudi Arabia on Monday, coincided with air strikes by a Saudi-led alliance on Iran-allied Houthi fighters, intensified fighting and reports the humanitarian situation was worsening.
“The brothers in Ansarullah are called on to fear God with the Yemeni people and stop their war on the cities,” Yemeni news Web site voice-yemen.com reported, referring to the Shiite Muslim Houthi group by its official name.
Photo: AP
“Everybody must realize that the UN Security Council resolution 2216 created a framework to end the conflict and that any initiative or dialogue would be for a mechanism to implement this resolution,” he added.
The Houthis have rejected the resolution, which imposes an arms embargo on the group and on supporters of former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh and demands the Ansarullah group drop its weapons and quit cities, including the capital, Sana’a, it captured since September last year.
Other Yemeni news Web sites also carried the remarks.
A coalition of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia is trying to stop Houthi fighters and Saleh loyalists taking control of Yemen. The fighting has killed more than 1,000 people in the five weeks since the air campaign began on March 26.
Saudi Arabia announced a halt to the air campaign last week to allow for political solution, but fighting has intensified again since Sunday.
Residents said that heavy clashes were reported overnight in the oil-producing Marib Province east of Sana’a and in the strategic central city of Taiz and in Aden.
They said a large number of casualties were reported in Marib, where tribal fighters allied with Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi confronted Houthi militiamen and troops loyal to former Saleh, but no exact figures were immediately available.
Medical and security sources yesterday said that at least 20 people were killed in heavy fighting in Aden.
Forces loyal to Hadi were pushed back in the city’s central Khor Maksar district as the rebels overran Hadi’s family home and the German and Russian consulates, a local official said.
A spokesman for the pro-rebel armed forces said that 112 soldiers, 43 policemen and 45 Houthi militia had been killed in five weeks of coalition air strikes.
The rebels have said they will not return to UN-brokered peace talks until the air strikes end.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia