Houthis launch new wave of attacks in Yemen
•48-hour drone and ground assault •Sniper kills civilian in besieged city of Taiz
The Houthi militia in Yemen have launched a new wave of drone and ground attacks in governmentcontrolled territories across the country over the past 48 hours. Residents in the besieged city of Taiz said a Houthi sniper killed a man as he walked through a small village in the city’s Saber district. Saeed Ahmed Abdullah, 43, died on the way to the hospital.
There has been sporadic fighting between the Houthis and government forces in a number of contested areas outside of Taiz. Residents of the city have long complained that a UN-brokered truce has neither halted arbitrary bombardments and ground attacks by the Houthis, nor eased the militia’s siege of the city. Meanwhile British authorities have appointed lawyer and diplomat Abda Sharif as the UK’s new ambassador to Yemen, based in Riyadh. She will take up her post in September and succeeds Richard Oppenheim. Sharif ’s most recent position was head of the Iraq and Arabian Peninsula Department in the Middle East and North Africa Directorate at the Foreign Office. Between 2012 and 2016 she was deputy ambassador to Lebanon, and before that she led the UK Office in Benghazi, Libya. “Delighted to be UK Ambassador to Yemen, look forward to returning to the Middle East,” Sharif said on social media.
When the war in Yemen began in late 2014 the UK closed its embassy in Sanaa and transferred its ambassador and staff to Riyadh.
Sharif’s appointment comes at a time when the UN special envoy Hans Grundberg and the international community, including the UK, are stepping up pressure on the Yemeni government and the Houthis to reach an agreement that can end the long-running civil war.
Extensive international efforts have so far failed to persuade the Houthis to formally renew a longterm UN-brokered ceasefire, after a temporary truce expired in October of last year, or to end their drone and missile attacks on oil facilities.
‘Delighted to be UK Ambassador to Yemen, look forward to returning to the Middle East,’ Abda Sharif said on social media.