Sana’a resistance fighters capture Saleh loyalists

Al Mukalla: Sana’a Resistance fighters said on Wednesday that they have captured dozens of the elite Republican Guard and Special Forces soldiers fighting along with Al Houthis in Sana’a province. Some of the captured soldiers served in the past as personal bodyguards to the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

“Since the beginning of the onoging military operation in Sana’a province, we have captured more than 100 Al Houthis and Republican Guard soldiers,” Abdullah Al Shandagi, Sana’a Resistance spokesperson, told Gulf News. The former president has long denied any involvement in facilitating Al Houthi expansion across the country since early 2014. Al Shandagi said that the soldiers who were quizzed by government forces revealed that some Iranian military experts are training Al Houthis in the capital and Saada province, the rebels’ stronghold. “ The Red Crescent have retrieved bodies of 360 Al Houthis from the mountains and villages that we have seized recently,”

Government army troops and local fighters in December advanced deeply into the province of Sana’a for the first time since the beginning of fighting against Al Huothis early last year. Al Shandagi said that the resistance has achieved the first phase of a plan sponsored by a Saudi-led coalition to wrest the capital from Al Houthis and their allied forces. The first phase includes liberating Majazer district in Marib and capturing some areas in Sana’a. “ We feel appreciative to the coalition forces for their air support, cannons and air-defence system that destroyed many of Al Houthis ballistic missiles.”

Al Shandagi said that huge landmines planted by Al Houthis slowed their advanced in the mountainous province.

Also in the capital, residents said on Wednesday that warplanes from the coalition intensified airstrikes on Sana’a hitting the presidential palace and Al Nahden mountain, that said to be housing an underground missile depot.Other airstrikes targeted military sites in the western city of Hodeida. In Taiz province, residents said that coalition warplanes destroyed Al Houthis armed vehicles that were shelling the city from outskirts.

In the south, a government official said that army troops recaptured the town of Karash in Lahj province a day after falling to Al Houthi fighters. In Aden, security forces stepped up security measures in the wake of a suicide attack that targeted a convoy of government officials on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, unknown assailants shot dead Mahmoud Al Saadi, a member of Aden’s local authority, in Shaikh Othman district.