Cairo: Yemen’s Al Houthi movement and its armed allies seized a military base north of Sana’a on Sunday, dealing a setback to a shaky ceasefire and peace talks in Kuwait aimed at ending a year-long war.
Unlike most of Yemen’s soldiers, those at the Umaliqa base had refused to take sides in the civil war between the Iran-allied Al Houthis and the government, which escalated when a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia intervened in March last year.
The Al Houthis launched a surprise push into the facility in Amran province and seized its large cache of weapons at dawn, according to local officials.
Several of the soldiers defending the base were killed during the assault, they added.
Abdul Malek Al Mekhlafi, Yemen’s Foreign Minister and the government’s top delegate to UN-backed negotiations with the Al Houthis in Kuwait, said the move had “torpedoed” the talks.
“We will take the appropriate position in response to the Al Houthi crime at the Umaliqa base in Amran for the sake of our people and country,” he wrote on his official Twitter account.
Buttressed by a truce, which had been largely holding since April 10, talks in Kuwait had been inching ahead in recent days and the Al Houthis acnowledged the release of 40 of its fighters by Saudi Arabia on Saturday.
The war has killed at least 6,200 people and unleashed a humanitarian crisis in the already impoverished country.
