Tag

Saudi-led warplanes pounded rebel positions in Sanaa on Monday as the rebels called a mass rally to celebrate the first anniversary of their seizure of the Yemeni capital.

Earlier, medics said at least 20 people were killed when coalition warplanes bombed two buildings in the capital Sanaa, which the rebels overran a year ago.

The bombings by the Islamic State, a Sunni extremist group, have often been seen as efforts to incite a broader sectarian conflict with followers of the Houthis, the Shi’ite-led rebel movement that has controlled Sana for more than a year. It has been reported that this the...

Yemen’s Prime Minister and Vice President Khaled Bahah and several cabinet members returned to Aden last week after government loyalists, known as the Popular Resistance, and Saudi-led forces, drove the Houthis from the strategic southern city.

The BBC reports the strikes hit a bottling plant Sunday morning and that most of the dead were civilians.

Yemen has been wracked by conflict since March, when the Saudi-led coalition launched air strikes against the rebels as they advanced on the main southern city of Aden, after seizing the capital in September.

The seizure of Al Anad military base, once the hub of a U.S. drone war against Al Qaeda’s potent Yemen branch, would mark a significant gain for the Saudi Arabian-backed troops fighting to reclaim large tracts of territory from Shiite Muslim rebels known as Houthis.

Despite losing Aden, the rebels still control large swathes of Yemen, including Sanaa which they overran last September.

Asseri, whose side has been conducting air raids on Houthis since March 26, said the first task was to secure Aden so the government could operate from there for the moment. The coalition also struck upper of the port-city of Aden.

However, ground fighting broke out nearly immediately in the restive city of Taiz following random shelling by Shiite Houthi rebels in three neighborhoods, they said.

Ground fighting erupted in multiple provinces within minutes of the start of the unilateral ceasefire late Sunday.

The wreckage of a auto is seen at the site of a vehicle bomb attack near a Shiite mosque on the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on July 20, 2015.

“The failure of Saudi Arabia and other coalition members to investigate apparently unlawful air strikes in Yemen demonstrates the need for the United Nations Human Rights Council to create a commission of inquiry”, it said.

“It just shows what is the trend now of the air strikes from the coalition”, said Hassan Boucenine of the Geneva-based Doctors Without Borders.

Saudi-owned al Arabiya TV claimed the Houthis, who control Sanaa, have put their forces in the city on alert.