Car bomb claimed by IS kills four in Yemen capital

Yemen’s “popular resistance” forces, which support president-in-exile Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, said late Sunday that 47 civilians had been killed – and more than 140 injured – when the Shia Houthi militia shelled parts of the southern Aden province.

The government of Hadi, based by the Saudi-led coalition and who took refuge in Riyadh, last week announced regaining control of the strategic port city, though rebel resistance pockets remain. Women and children constitute the majority of the casualties, said the source.

The security situation in Yemen has deteriorated since 2011 when mass protests forced former President Ali Abdullash Saleh to step down.

Al-Bakri had been one of the government officials who did not flee Aden when it was overrun by Houthi militiamen earlier this year. Al-Maashiq presidential palace in the downtown district of Crater remains in Houthi control.

Assisted by Saudi-led air strikes, the local forces broke months of stalemate in Aden last week by suddenly seizing the airport and advancing into other parts of the port city held by the Houthis and forces loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

“A wide combing operation is under way to flush out” rebel holdouts, he said, adding that remaining insurgents had taken positions on several rooftops.

Shelling by Houthi and pro-Saleh forces in the Dar Saad district of Aden on Sunday, which killed at least 43 people, was indiscriminate and targeted an area where many displaced people live, the global aid group Medecins sans Frontieres said.

Two ministers from the government in exile in Saudi Arabia returned to Aden at the weekend, touring the devastated city.

More than 3,200 people, many of them civilians, have been killed in fighting across Yemen since Saudi-led airstrikes began in March, the United Nations said.