HADI PLEDGES TO FIGHT ON

Yemeni president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi yesterday promised to continue the fight against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels who bring death and destruction to the state.

“We are ending our third year of the war imposed on our country by the Houthis,” Mr Hadi said at the UN General Assembly. “The rebels have swept the cities of Yemen and taken the entire country hostage, all the while implementing an Iranian strategy” in the conflict.

The Yemen government was seeking “sustainable peace; fair and strong that cannot relapse and that lays the foundation for a real state that guarantees long-lasting solutions”. But Mr Hadi said the government was facing a difficult enemy.

“Our problem is not a political difference that can be negotiated; it’s not even a coup. It goes beyond this. It’s a difference between philosophies and ideologies. Sects that believe God has granted them superiority and a right to rule. They go against all human values.”

Mr Hadi spoke of the militias destroying all of the state’s institutions, lamenting that the “private sector has disappeared and school curricula have been replaced with extremist material”.

The militias been also been supplied with long-range missiles by Iran, he said, and were refusing to endorse initiatives – led by the United Nations and endorsed by regional powers such as Kuwait – that would lead to peace.