Aden, Cairo: Local militia ejected Al Houthi militiamen from much of the southern Yemeni city of Dalea on Monday, residents and combatants said, inflicting the first significant setback on the Iranian-backed militia in two months of civil war.

Dalea had been a bastion of southern secessionists in Yemen before Al Houthis took widespread control of the city in March, after having seized the capital Sana’a in the north in September, toppling President Abd Rabbu Mansour, and then thrust into the centre and south of the country.

After two months of fighting in which much of Dalea has been destroyed, pro-government fighters on Monday turned the tide by seizing a key military base and the main security directorate in the city, fighter sources and local residents said. Twelve pro-government fighters and 40 Al Houthis were killed, they said.

“In intense fighting lasting from dawn until this afternoon, the southern resistance succeeded in cleansing our city of Al Houthi elements,” a front-line fighter said.

Eyewitnesses said local forces in Dalea, which has an estimated population of 90,000, were backed by weeks of air strikes on Houthi positions as well as weapons drops which intensified in recent days.

Meanwhile, Al Houthis denied claims that UN peace talks that were due in Geneva on Mat 28 were postponed.

A senior official their group on Monday said that the UN has not declared postponement of peace talks.

The UN plans to hold a conference in Geneva on May 28 that will involve Yemen’s exiled government, political factions, including the Al Houthi group and the Arab coalition, to restore momentum toward a political transition process. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged all Yemeni parties to engage in the talks without precondition.

An unnamed UN official has said earlier that the meeting would be postponed indefinitely.

“I can confirm that the meeting has been postponed,” the UN official said, without providing further immediate explanation.

The Yemeni government, headed by President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi who is in Saudi Arabia, expressed reluctance to attend the talks, saying Al Houthis should first withdraw from the cities they occupied since last September and hand over weapons they took from the army.

“Mohammed Abdul Salam and Saleh Al Sumad, who are our representatives for the UN-sponsored peace talks due to be held in Geneva on May 28, are in Oman now and they have not yet been notified about postponement of the talks in which Oman plays a key role,” an Al Houthi official at the group’s political bureau told Xinhua news agency.

“They (their representatives) also have not yet notified the political bureau about such UN decision,” the official said, asking not to be named.

Chief of the Al Houthi political bureau Hussain Al Ezzy said his group supported the Geneva talks and that its representatives were already in Oman to prepare to attend the peace conference.

He rejected Hadi’s demands that Al Houthi fighters withdraw from cities.

“We will attend Geneva talks only if they are based on the agreed outcomes of the Yemeni national dialogue and the UN-brokered peace and partnership agreement,” he was quoted by Houthi media as saying.