Pro-government forces in Yemen, strengthened by tanks newly supplied by a Saudi Arabia-led coalition, launched an offensive on Saturday to retake the rebel-held capital of the Abyan Governorate, military sources said.
A drive on the southern province’s capital of Zinjibar was launched from the northern and southern sides of the city, the sources said.
It came two days after tribal and military sources said Saudi Arabia, leading an Arab coalition air war on the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, had sent new materiel to Yemen.
Photo: Reuters
The tanks were part of a package including other armored vehicles and personnel carriers, as well as hundreds of Yemeni soldiers trained in the kingdom, a military source said.
This week has seen fierce fighting in Zinjibar and heavy coalition air strikes against positions of the 15th Army Brigade allied with the Houthis.
Since March 26, the coalition has supported loyalists with air strikes aimed at halting advances by the Houthis, who seized Sana’a last year before pressing south into the port city of Aden.
Pro-government forces retook Aden last month and on Tuesday last week seized the key al-Anad Air Base to its north.
Military sources said at least 22 people, mostly returning civilians, have been killed since Thursday by explosions caused by mines planted by retreating Houthis in Aden and Lahj provinces.
Aden was the last refuge of Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi before he fled into exile with his government in Saudi Arabia in March.
The official United Arab Emirates news agency on Saturday reported the deaths of three Emirati coalition soldiers.
Without saying where or when they were killed, WAM said they died while taking part in “the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia to support the legitimate government in Yemen.”
On Monday last week, Saudi Arabia-owned newspaper Al-Hayat reported that a total of 1,500 troops, most of them from the United Arab Emirates, had entered Aden.
International Committee of the Red Cross president Peter Maurer arrived in Sana’a on Saturday at the start of a three-day visit to assess the “dire humanitarian situation” in the country.
He is to hold talks with leading officials, a committee statement said, without identifying them.
Rebel officials said he would meet Houthi leaders and their allies in the General People’s Congress party of ousted Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The UN said nearly 4,000 people have been killed since March, half of them civilians, while 80 percent of Yemen’s 21 million people are in need of aid and protection.
The committee said that 1.3 million Yemenis have been displaced by the conflict.
“The human cost of this conflict is such that no family in Yemen today has been left unaffected,” Maurer said ahead of his visit.
“We are particularly concerned about attacks on medical facilities and personnel. Moreover, deliveries of food, water and medicine must be facilitated, not hampered,” he said.
It was not clear if Maurer plans to visit Aden, which has been left in ruins by four months of fierce fighting and air strikes.
The conflict is to be among issues discussed during a visit by Saudi Arabian Minister of Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir to Moscow tomorrow, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Moscow said al-Jubeir and Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov would pay “great attention” to the conflict and discuss strategies for a “speedy resolution.”
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