Ground fighting rages on in Yemen ahead of ceasefire

Last month, top regional United Nations official Johannes van der Klaauw said the fighting has killed an estimated 5,700 people since March, when the Saudi-led coalition began launching airstrikes.

“In recent weeks, Washington and London have exerted intense pressure on President Hadi and the government side to make concessions and not to be extreme in terms of executing the Security Council Resolution”, one senior Yemeni government official told Reuters.

Capitalizing on the continued fighting, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has gained a foothold in the province of Hadramawt and the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has carried out attacks in both Sana’a and Aden.

“Alarmed by the growing jihadist threat in territories under its control following the attacks in Aden, the government has no choice but to soften its position and act positively”, said Badrakhan. From our side, we wish a ceasefire would start even from now”, he said, according to AFP.

Yemen’s conflict has pitted local forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition fighting in support of Mr Hadi’s government against the Iran-backed Houthis and renegade troops still loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

A seven-day ceasefire will start in Yemen on Monday, the day before planned U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Switzerland.

The Houthis announced in a statement that the two coalition officials were killed when the rebels fired a long-range missile at a secret headquarters of the pro-government military leadership close to the strategic strait of Bab al-Mandab. The conflict was sparked when the rebels took control of the capital, forcing Hadi to flee. In July, the two sides observed a five-day ceasefire, though they traded accusations of violating the truce.

The UN invited Hadi’s government and the Houthis to peace talks in Switzerland starting on Tuesday, after the sides agreed on a draft agenda and ground rules for the talks.

And there has been no word from Mr Saleh or his General People’s Congress party, which is represented at the Switzerland talks.

In November, Hadi returned to Aden and declared it his provisional capital.

“We have agreed to the ceasefire to lift the suffering of our people and to deliver humanitarian assistance to them”, Mohammed Abdel Salam, the spokesman of the Shiite rebels known as Houthis, said Saturday at a news conference in Sanaa as the Houthi delegation prepared to depart for Geneva.