12 Al Houthis killed in Taiz clashes
Government troops also kill 13 rebels in continuing offensive in northern city of Medi
As many as 12 Al Houthi fighters were killed in fierce clashes with government forces on the western edges of Yemen’s southern city of Taiz, Saba news agency has reported.
Government forces have escalated military attacks on the rebels in a bid to fully break a more than two-year siege that brought Taiz to the brink of famine.
The Ministry of Defence said yesterday that government forces killed at least 13 Al Houthis and injured dozens more in a continuing offensive in the northern city of Medi in Hajja province.
The military’s official news site reported that the rebels mounted an assault to recapture locations from the government forces.
In Al Houthi-held Sana’a, the Saudi-led coalition’s fighter jets yesterday launched air strikes on mountains and military sites where the rebels’ arsenal of ballistic missiles is stored.
Two Al Qaida men killed
Meanwhile, two suspected Al Qaida militants were killed in a drone strike in war-torn Yemen, local security sources said yesterday amid a surge in US raids against militants.
The sources said the drone, apparently American, hit the fighters on Friday evening as they rode a motorbike through the Sawmaa area of central Baida province. The region is a stronghold of Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has taken advantage of the chaos caused by more than two years of civil war to expand its presence in Yemen.
Baida was the site of the first raid ordered by US President Donald Trump after he took office in January.
The US has since escalated its drone war in Yemen, where security officials have reported dozens of suspected militants killed in strikes on Abyan, Baida and the neighbouring province of Shabwa.
The Pentagon says it has carried out over 70 air strikes in Yemen since February 28.
Residents in Abyan told Gulf News that several Al Qaida militants have been killed in US drones strikes on the city of Modea. They said the drone strikes created panic in the area.
The United States is among 18 countries that have been supporting the transitional political process in Yemen that started in late 2011 when ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to hand over power to his deputy.
In February this year, Yemen President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi voiced his full support to US President Donald Trump’s administration’s counter-terrorism mission, three weeks after a US commando raid in Baydha killed at least a dozen civilians.