Saudi-led air strikes kill nine civilians as attacks on Yemen capital resume
ADEN (Reuters) – A Saudi-led military coalition conducted air strikes near the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Tuesday for the first time in five months, residents said, after UN-backed talks to end the conflict broke down over the weekend.
Medics said nine civilians were killed when the strike hit a potato chip factory in the capital’s Nahda district.
The Saudi-led coalition backs Yemeni forces loyal to the exiled government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and hopes to oust Iran-allied Houthi forces from Sanaa.
The coalition also forced suspension of flights into Sanaa International Airport from late on Monday for 72 hours, an airport official and aid agency sources said.
A spokesman for the coalition did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the air strikes or the airport closure.
The air strikes hit a presidential compound and military base in Sanaa as well as a Republican Guard base in the Arhab area near the airport, residents said. Pro-government forces are trying to advance into the city from the north and east.
In a separate development in Yemen’s southern Shabwa province, residents in Azzan said Al Qaeda militants had dismantled their checkpoints and withdrawn from their city on Tuesday after air strikes, apparently by Saudi-led coalition forces, targeted their positions there.
The militants took advantage of wartime chaos to seize control of much of southern Yemen, but have suffered military setbacks inflicted by coalition-backed local forces.
Saudi Arabia and its mostly Gulf Arab allies intervened in Yemen’s civil war in March 2015, after the armed Houthi movement pushed the Hadi administration into exile in Saudi Arabia.
The coalition has launched thousands of air attacks on the Houthis and their allies in Yemen’s army, but paused the strikes on Sanaa in March after reaching an informal agreement with the Houthis to tamp down combat on the Yemeni-Saudi border.
While the coalition has imposed a near-blockade aimed at weapons shipments to the Houthis, they have mostly allowed Sanaa airport to operate civilian and humanitarian aid flights since March.