Reuters, Aden :
Iran-allied Houthi militiamen pushed into the northeastern outskirts of the Yemeni port city of Aden on Monday amid heavy clashes with loyalists of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi apparently backed by Saudi-led air strikes.
Witnesses heard loud explosions and saw a thick column of black smoke and a jet flying overhead. Hadi’s supporters earlier said artillery and rocket fire hit the approaches to the city after the Houthis made a fresh advance from the east along an Arabian Sea coast road.
As the two sides fought over Hadi’s last bastion, humanitarian workers said an air strike in the northern Yemen district of Haradh killed 21 people at a refugee camp near to a military installation.
It was not immediately possible to contact Saudi officials for comment.
Saudi Arabia, backed by regional Sunni Muslim allies, launched an air campaign to support Hadi after he withdrew last month from the capital to Aden. He left Yemen on Thursday to attend an Arab summit and has not returned.
The fighting has brought civil war to the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, which was already sliding into chaos with a growing secessionist movement in the south and a covert US drone
campaign – now stalled – against al Qaeda in the east.
The growing power of the Houthis, part of a Shi’ite minority that makes up about a third of the population, also means Yemen has become the latest stage for Saudi Arabia’s power struggle with Iran.
The two regional rivals support opposing sides in Syria’s grinding civil war and in neighbouring Lebanon. Tehran also supports and arms Shi’ite militias in Iraq, although it denies Riyadh’s accusations that it supports Yemen’s Houthis militarily.
In the capital Sanaa, controlled by the Houthis, jets struck around the presidential palace next to the diplomatic quarter early on Monday, as well as a weapons depot in the Nugum mountain overlooking the capital.
Iran-allied Houthi militiamen pushed into the northeastern outskirts of the Yemeni port city of Aden on Monday amid heavy clashes with loyalists of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi apparently backed by Saudi-led air strikes.
Witnesses heard loud explosions and saw a thick column of black smoke and a jet flying overhead. Hadi’s supporters earlier said artillery and rocket fire hit the approaches to the city after the Houthis made a fresh advance from the east along an Arabian Sea coast road.
As the two sides fought over Hadi’s last bastion, humanitarian workers said an air strike in the northern Yemen district of Haradh killed 21 people at a refugee camp near to a military installation.
It was not immediately possible to contact Saudi officials for comment.
Saudi Arabia, backed by regional Sunni Muslim allies, launched an air campaign to support Hadi after he withdrew last month from the capital to Aden. He left Yemen on Thursday to attend an Arab summit and has not returned.
The fighting has brought civil war to the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, which was already sliding into chaos with a growing secessionist movement in the south and a covert US drone
campaign – now stalled – against al Qaeda in the east.
The growing power of the Houthis, part of a Shi’ite minority that makes up about a third of the population, also means Yemen has become the latest stage for Saudi Arabia’s power struggle with Iran.
The two regional rivals support opposing sides in Syria’s grinding civil war and in neighbouring Lebanon. Tehran also supports and arms Shi’ite militias in Iraq, although it denies Riyadh’s accusations that it supports Yemen’s Houthis militarily.
In the capital Sanaa, controlled by the Houthis, jets struck around the presidential palace next to the diplomatic quarter early on Monday, as well as a weapons depot in the Nugum mountain overlooking the capital.
