Yemen conflict: Hotel used by PM Badah hit in Aden

Attacks targeting exiled Yemeni officials and Saudi-led troops fighting in the country’s civil war killed at least 15 people Tuesday in the port city of Aden, authorities said.

It said that transfers of arms and munitions used by members of the Saudi-led coalition to “commit violations of global humanitarian law, including war crimes in Yemen” must be suspended.

Military installations were also hit.

The rebels “targeted the government headquarters and several military positions (and) left 15 Arab coalition and Yemeni resistance martyrs”, said WAM.

Bahah wrote on Facebook that two rockets had hit the hotel while other rockets struck elsewhere.

The jihadist group, which controls large parts of Iraq and Syria and has affiliates elsewhere in the region, said soldiers were killed in these attacks, without saying how many.

Abu Hamza al-Sanaani had blown up a UAE-held military position using another armoured vehicle.

IS published the names and photographs of the four alleged assailants.

The attack on the Al Qasr Hotel & Resort, a large compound that Yemeni officials use as a headquarters, happened early Tuesday morning. The general command of the UAE’s armed forces said the dead included four Emirati soldiers, though the Saudi Press Agency said three Emiratis and one Saudi died.

Amnesty said in a report that it had examined 13 deadly air strikes by the coalition, assembled by Saudi Arabia, that had killed about 100 civilians, including 59 children.

The official Saudi Press Agency blamed the Houthis for the attack, saying the rebels fired Russian-designed Katyusha rockets.

Medics told AFP two Yemeni guards were killed and 12 were wounded in the attack on Bahah’s hotel.

Saudi and Emirati officials did not immediately comment on the Islamic State claim.

Rockets also targeted a nearby barracks used by Saudi-led forces as well as a residence for members of the coalition.

In July, pro-government militiamen and soldiers drove the Houthis and allied army units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of the port city with the help of coalition ground forces. Cutting diplomatic ties with Iran Exiled government of President Hadi announced to sever diplomatic relations with Iran, state-owned Aden television reported on Friday without elaborating, Reuters reported.

The attacks come just days after Bahah warned the rebels that there was no room for more “adventures”.

“This report uncovers yet more evidence of unlawful air strikes carried out by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, a few of which amount to war crimes”.

Previously it only claimed attacks against Shiite mosques in Yemen.

The London-based watchdog urged holding an “independent, effective investigation of violations” by the coalition, in which U.S. allies the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are playing a key role.

On September 4, a rebel missile attack in the eastern Yemeni province of Marib killed 67 coalition troops, including 52 Emiratis.