Top Yemen general killed in rebel strike

Deputy chief of staff among six officers killed by rocket as Iran-backed Houthis launch attack to retake port city of Mokha

SANAA // The deputy chief of staff of Yemen’s military was killed yesterday in a Houthi rebel missile attack.

Brig Gen Ahmed Al Yafie and six other officers were killed when the ballistic missile hit a meeting of commanders near Mokha on the Red Sea coast, military officials said.

The strike also wounded 25 people.

The Yemeni prime minister, Ahmed Abdu Dagher, expressed condolences on Twitter after the attack, and said the “end of the enemy is near”.

The Saba news agency, which is controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis, said that the missile struck Brig Al Yafie’s vehicle.

Mokha, a historic port, has been the scene of intense fighting between pro-government forces and the Saudi-led coalition on one side, and the Houthis and allied forces loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh on the other. The Yemeni army had overrun Mokha on February 10 and government commanders had talked confidently of pushing north towards the rebel-held port of Hodeidah.

But the rebels hit back near Mokha yesterday in clashes that killed 18 soldiers and 21 of their own.

More than 50 others from the two sides were wounded in the fighting, in which the coalition carried out air strikes as the rebels reached the eastern out- skirts of Mokha.

The government’s liberation of Mokha this month was their biggest success in months, with the rebels still holding the capital Sanaa and much of the central and northern highlands, as well as the coast around Hodeidah.

Before the 19th century, Mokha was Yemen’s main port and export centre for coffee grown in the highlands.

Its standing as a historic symbol meant it was fiercely contested by government troops and rebels.

Tens of thousands of people were recently displaced from the fighting along the western coastline. President Abdrabu Mansur Hadi said yesterday that Saudi Arabia had allocated US$10 billion (Dh36.7bn) in aid for the reconstruction of provinces that had been retaken from the Shiite Houthis.

Mr Hadi said the money would be “for the reconstruction of liberated provinces, including $2bn as a deposit in the central bank to shore up the Yemeni riyal”, the Saba news agency reported.

The president, speaking in the temporary southern capital of Aden, called on his government to focus spending on power, water, roads, health and education in liberated areas.