Al Mukalla: Saudi-led coalition warplanes launched on Thursday heavy air strikes on military sites controlled by Al Houthis and allied forces loyal to the ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh across Yemen, residents and army commanders said.
In the capital, residents said thunderous explosions shook the city in the early hours of Thursday after the warplanes and missiles targeted military sites with no reports on casualties.
The coalition has intensified air raids on the rebel-controlled Sana’a since early last month when the latest round of peace talks in Kuwait failed to yield a political settlement to end more than a year of bloody fighting.
Heavy air strikes were also reported in Taiz and Jawf that meant to shore up government troops in battles against the rebels.
In Taiz, local activists and government officials said on Thursday that at least eight government forces were killed and 17 injured in heavy clashes with Al Houthis and ousted president’s forces on many fronts in the country’s third largest city.
Zakaria Al Shara’bi, a local journalist who logs war deaths in Taiz, said the government forces blunted a big attack on Brigade 35 and other locations. Five rebel forces were killed in the same clashes. Residents also said that the coalition’s warplanes hit the rebels’ machine guns that were shelling the city’s residential areas.
Rebel forces have recently suffered major defeats when the government forces captured strategic areas on the western side of the city and partially lifted the rebels’ yearlong siege.
Fierce clashes and heavy air strikes by the Saudi warplanes were reported on Thursday in the northern province of Jawf. Government forces in the province of Marib destroyed a vehicle carrying arms and ammunition to Al Houthi fighters on the Helan front-line.
Meanwhile, local authorities in the southern province of Lahj on Wednesday night captured three Al Qaida militants in Huta city after a successful raid on their hideouts. Adeb Al Sayed, a media aide to the governor of Lahj, described the captured militants as “dangerous” who masterminded many terrorist attacks in the province of Lahj and the neighbouring Aden city.
Al Sayed told Gulf News that at least four top leaders of the militant groups and many low- and high-level militants have surrendered to the local security authorities. Al Sayed said that the militants agreed to lay down their arms in response of mediation by respected religious and social figures.
“Security is improving in the province as security forces have inflicted a fatal blow to the terrorist network,” he added.
