Dubai: Officials within the Southern Movement and analysts based in Aden have denied press reports claiming that Iran-backed Al Houthi militants have regained several positions they lost in recent months across the country’s south.
Meanwhile, scores of people were killed in fighting across Yemen, including the capital Sana’a, between the Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi and the Al Houthi militia and its allies in renegade forces backing ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
“I can confirm that the southern areas that were liberated by the Yemeni resistance in collaboration with the Arab alliance are still under the full control of the national Yemeni resistance,” said Fouad Rashid, secretary of the Southern Movement.
Rashid, who is based in Cairo, told Gulf News there were some areas where the Al Houthis and coalition forces were still engaged in fighting.
“There is no Al Houthi presence in Aden,” he said while adding that the town of Mukayras in the Al Baida governorate and the town of Baihan in the Shabwa governorate were under the control of the militia.
An AFP report quoting military sources said that Al Houthi militants were positioned on a hill overlooking the strategic Al Anad airbase in the Lahj province bordering Aden.
Sudanese forces who joined the Saudi-led coalition are currently positioned there.
Backed by coalition air strikes, supplies and troops, Yemeni pro-government forces launched a major counter-offensive in July, pushing the Al Houthis out of Aden and four other southern provinces — Lahj, Daleh, Abyan, and Shabwa.
Analysts say that claims of Al Houthi advances are just attempts to improve their bargaining position ahead of the upcoming UN-sponsored peace talks and that such reports had been leaked to the media with that objective in mind.
Meanwhile, fighting between the Al Houthis and Yemeni forces to the country’s southwest, on the border between Lahj and Taiz provinces, led to casualties on both sides, according to pro-government sources.
More than 50 people have been killed in fighting in Yemen in the past two days, medical sources and residents say.
Medical sources in Taiz were quoted by Reuters as saying that 29 people, including eight civilians, were killed in clashes in Yemen’s third largest city, where relief workers have said fighting has blocked food supplies and left thousands of people in extreme hunger.
About 30 people were killed in fighting in Damt district, in Dhaleh governorate in the south, residents said.
Also, 20 Al Houthi militants were killed on Sunday when the Arab coalition attacked an Al Houthi convoy in the eastern part of Sana’a.
The warring parties have both agreed to participate in the Geneva talks expected later this week. Also, both have publicly agreed to implement UN Security Council Resolution 2216, which calls on the Al Houthis and forces loyal to Saleh to withdraw from the country’s main cities and surrender arms captured from Yemeni government forces.
— With inputs from agencies
