Saudi Arabia sends reinforcements to Yemen

Meanwhile, a plane belonging to Yemenia, the national carrier, landed in Aden with 150 Yemenis who had fled to Djibouti when the fighting intensified in March, airport officials there said.

However, “this improvement in media freedom did not last long following the Houthis invasion of the capital Sana’a last September and the subsequent conflicts that have resulted in stopping 14 channels which resorted mostly to working from outside Yemen”, it added.

The Saudi casualty brings the number of people killed in shelling and skirmishes along the Saudi frontier with Yemen to at least 50 since the coalition campaign began on March 26.

U.N special envoy to the country Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed met with the secretary-general of the General People’s Congress (GPC) party, which supports Saleh, and Nabil Elaraby, the secretary-general of the Arab League in Cairo as he tries to end the war by obtaining a humanitarian pause first before enlarging it into a ceasefire agreement that will pave the way for negotiations.

Saudi Arabia is also leading a coalition targeting Iran-allied Shiite rebels in neighboring Yemen, not far from Abha.

The security officials say the extremist group seized government buildings without a fight and turned them into military bases.

Residents in the Yemeni capital Sanaa are stocking up on rare food and fuel supplies after the government in exile decided to divert aid ships from the Houthi rebel-held north to loyalist areas farther south.

Anti-Houthi forces continued to make gains on Thursday, fully surrounding the provincial capital of Lahej province, Zinjibar, north-east of Aden and massing their forces before an expected push toward the central city of Taez.

Recent weeks have seen pro-Hadi forces – backed up by Saudi-led air power – retake most of the coastal province, allowing for the return of several Yemeni government officials from Riyadh.

A military source on Monday reported the presence of “hundreds of soldiers from Gulf countries” that were members of the coalition in Aden, where they landed with “dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles” to “secure the city”.