Shelling from Yemen kills Saudi, 2 Indians

Fighting in Yemen has continued despite a ceasefire agreement.

Ten rebels were killed as loyalists pressed their offensive in Nihm, 40 kilometres (25 miles) outside the capital, they said.

And in Hodeida, a western coastal town through which much aid arrives, residents told The Associated Press that airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition hit the area late Sunday night, killing at least seven and wounding 13. “In Geneva, the United Nations announced that peace talks have ended”.

In September of previous year, the Houthis overran Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, before capturing additional parts of the country, forcing Saudi-backed President Hadi and his government to flee to Riyadh.

Following territorial gains by loyalist troops backed by the coalition, Hadi returned to Aden in November after six months in exile in the neighbouring oil-rich kingdom.

A Saudi-led coalition operating in Yemen on Monday successfully intercepted a missile fired at Saudi territory by Yemen’s Shia Houthi militant group, according to a coalition statement.

On Friday, the coalition said Saudi air defences intercepted a ballistic missile launched from Yemen and that a second missile struck a desert area east of Najran city.

Saudi Arabia has deployed Patriot missile batteries created to counter tactical ballistic missiles.

In this regard, the Independent daily said in its editorial that “the anti-terror alliance announced by Saudi Arabia inspires confidence in name only”, noting that it came as a response for the USA who has lamented the absence of Sunni Muslim states on the front lines of the fight against ISIL.

In Saudi Arabia, more than 80 people, a lot of them soldiers and border guards, have died in shelling and cross-border skirmishes since March.

Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman said “300 Saudi military and vital targets” had been chosen. The accord was signed in the presence of UN Special Representative and Head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) Martin Kobler, Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Salaheddine Mezouar and his peers from Spain, Italy, Qatar, Tunisia and Turkey, as well as representatives of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and the European Union.

An Iranian spokesman said Monday that diplomatic efforts were under way to open “direct dialogue” between rivals Tehran and Riyadh to resolve regional issues, including the Yemen conflict.