Clashes leave dozens of Al Houthis dead

Senior Al Qaida leader killed in US air strike in Yemen’s central province of Baida

At least 26 Yemeni fighters died in fresh clashes and an air strike as government forces advanced against Iran-backed Al Houthi militants near a key shipping strait, medics and officials said yesterday.

A week-long assault by government forces and their allies aims to expel the rebels from the Dhobab region, close to the Bab Al Mandab strait linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

At least 12 Al Houthi militants were killed in clashes on Friday night in Dhobab.

An overnight air strike by a the Saudi-led Arab coalition on a rebel assembly in Zaydiya, in Hodeida province, left another nine Al Houthis dead, a security official said.

A medical official at a hospital in Aden said five Yemeni forces were killed in the Dhobab fighting.

Forces loyal to President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi and allied fighters from the Popular Resistance have entered the town of Dhobab and liberated local government headquarters.

Yemeni forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition recaptured Bab Al Mandab strait in October 2015, pushing the rebels further north.

But the rebels still control nearly all of Yemen’s Red Sea coast to the north, posing what the coalition says is a threat to international shipping.

Meanwhile, a US air strike in Yemen has killed a regional Al Qaida senior operative, the Pentagon said on Friday.

The January 8 strike in the central province of Baida killed Abd Al Gani Al Rasas of Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said.

“This strike removes an AQAP senior leader and facilitator in the area and will disrupt AQAP’s terrorism operations in Yemen and the region,” he said in a statement.

In December, the US military said its air strikes have killed 28 Al Qaida militants in Yemen since September 2016.

The Central Command said in a statement that the air strikes took place between September 23 and December 13.

The AQAP and Daesh have exploited a power vacuum created by a conflict between the government and Iranbacked Al Houthi militants, in order to expand their presence in Yemen, especially in the south and south-east.

Regional efforts

In March 2016, a pair of Daesh suicide bombers killed at least 45 army recruits in Aden.

The attack prompted a campaign by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to oust Al Qaida from bastions it had carved out in the Hadramout, Abyan and Lahej provinces in Yemen’s south.

On April 24 last year, Yemeni troops backed by coalition forces, successfully booted the terrorist group from Al Mukalla, the capital of Hadramout.

UAE military officers have trained thousands of young people who participated in many massive military operations that pushed rebel fighters and Al Qaida militants out of major cities in Southern Yemen.

Yemeni forces later went on to liberate other provinces.