SANA’A: The UN envoy for Yemen arrived in the capital Sana’a on Saturday for talks to shore up a ceasefire in the country’s lifeline port city of Hodeida, an AFP photographer said.
Martin Griffiths is scheduled to hold talks in Sana’a with Al Houthi rebel leaders and will later travel to the Saudi capital Riyadh to meet Yemeni government officials.
Earlier, the UN announced that Griffiths will head to the capital Sana’a and later on will travel to Saudi Arabia where he will be holding talks with President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
In the meantime, retired Dutch General Patrick Cammaert, the UN head of the Hodeida truce monitoring committee, arrived in Sana’a to discuss the roadblocks to implementation of the agreement signed in Sweden at the Yemeni port city.
These meetings come ahead of the upcoming third meeting of the Joint Tripartite Coordinating Committee for the redeployment in Hodeida expected next Tuesday.
Cammaert, concluded the second round of consultations in Yemen, which was marked by persistent refusal of the Iranian-backed Al Houthi militias to abide by the agreement and the handing over of Hodeida ports and withdrawal from the city, after the second round of consultations ended without any results, reports Al Arabiya.
US air strike
Meanwhile, an American air strike earlier this week targeted an Al Qaida operative accused of involvement in the attack nearly two decades ago on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors, a US military spokesman said Friday.
The man targeted, Jamal Al Badawi, is wanted in the United States for his role in the Cole attack on October 12, 2000. He was indicted by a US grand jury in 2003 and charged with 50 counts of various terrorism offences, including murder of US nationals and murder of US military personnel.
“US forces are still assessing the results of the strike following a deliberate process to confirm his death,” the spokesman for US Central Command, Navy Capt. William Urban, said.
Urban said the air strike was conducted January 1 in the governate of Marib, which is east of Sana’a.
The Cole, a guide-missile destroyer, was attacked by suicide bombers in an explosives-laden boat while refuelling at the Yemeni port of Aden.
The stunning assault, which also wounded 39 aboard the ship, foreshadowed the more deadly attacks of September 11, 2001 that launched the US on wars in the Middle East that are still under way, including in Afghanistan.