Yemen military leader killed in missile attack
YEMENI rebels hit back at government forces advancing up the Red Sea coast, killing a deputy army commander in a missile strike, a military source said yesterday.
Army deputy chief of staff Major-General Ahmad Saif Al Yafii was killed by a heat-seeking missile on the outskirts of the coastal town of Mokha.
A further 18 soldiers as well as 21 rebels were killed in the clashes between Iranbacked Huthi insurgents and a Saudi-led coalition supporting the Yemeni government.
More than 50 others from the two sides were wounded in the fighting, which saw the coalition carry out air strikes as the rebels reached the eastern outskirts of Mokha.
The military had overrun Mokha on February 10. Tuesday’s clashes were a major setback for an offensive launched by government forces last month to try to recapture Yemen’s 450km Red Sea coastline, which had previously been almost entirely in rebel hands.
Government commanders had talked confidently of pushing north towards the rebel-held port city of Hodeida, a vital conduit for UN- supervised aid deliveries to rebel-held areas.
The loyalists’ capture of Mokha was their biggest success in months.
Despite nearly two years of military support from a Saudiled coalition, government forces are still largely restricted to the south and areas along the Saudi border.
The rebels still hold the capital Sanaa and much of the central and northern highlands as well as the coast around Hodeida.
In addition to the war with the Huthis, the government and its forces have come under repeated jihadist attack.
Al-Qaeda fighters on Tuesday seized three trucks transporting arms in the southern province of Abyan, according to military and tribal sources.
The trucks had been delivering weapons to a pro-government coalition post in Taiz, located 100km east of Mokha, the sources said.
Al-Qaeda and the rival Islamic State group had taken advantage of nearly two years of fighting between the government and the Huthis to entrench their presence in Yemen’s south.
The long conflict in Yemen has shown no let-up despite UN warnings of looming famine. – AFP