Al Mukalla: Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi has reiterated orders to local army commanders to press ahead with an offensive in Saada province, Al Houthis’ main bastion. The aim is to reach hiding places of the Al Houthi leadership.
The state-run Saba news agency said Hadi discussed with Brigadier Obeid Al Athela, a senior army commander on Saada front, fresh territorial gains in some parts of Saada and ongoing attacks against Al Houthis. Hadi instructed the army commander to intensify attacks on the militants until the army takes full control of the province, which is said to host senior militia commanders and their arsenal of ballistic missiles.
Backed by intense air raids by the Saudi-led coalition, government troops have moved deep into Saada after taking control of new areas in Bouqa in Ketaf district, east of Saada city. Al Athela said on Tuesday his forces rolled 10km into in Ketaf and are now fighting their way into the district’s centre.
Exploiting the collapse of Al Houthis’ uneasy alliance with late former president Ali Abdullah Saleh in December, Yemen’s army escalated military operations on all fronts and scored major gains, including liberating parts Bouqa for the first time since the beginning of the war in 2015. Yemen’s Defence Ministry on Wednesday announced the killing and injuring of dozens of militiamen during the current offensive in Saada.
Meanwhile, in the northern province of Jawf, government forces launched a new offensive aimed at expelling Al Houthis from Barat Al Anan district and preventing them from shelling the newly liberated areas in the province. Government-allied Jawf Media Centre said on Wednesday that government forces attacked Al Houthi militants in Aefi region, the last strip of land that is under the control of Al Houthis in Barat Al Anan district.
The militants have been squeezed in several small districts after government forces liberated most of the province, including Khab and Al Sha’af, the largest district in Jawf.
In Riyadh, Hadi said Al Houthis would never be willing to achieve a political settlement with his government to end almost three years of bloody fighting.
At a meeting with UN envoy to Yemen, Esmail Ould Shaikh Ahmad, Hadi said Al Houthis should first quit cities they occupy, release prisoners and disarm if they want to seek peace. Ahmad briefed Hadi on the outcomes of his deputy’s visit to Sana’a, where he met Al Houthi leaders. Several rounds of peace talks have crumbled over the past three years as Al Houthis insist on forming a shared government before handing over their weapons and vacating cities. Hadi has recently said a military option rather than peace talks would likely bring an end to Yemen’s crisis.
