Yemen intelligence chief dies after Houthi drone attack

Yemen’s intelligence chief, Brig Gen Saleh Tammah, died yesterday of wounds sustained in a Houthi drone strike on the country’s largest airbase.

At least seven members of the armed forces were killed in Thursday’s attack, which is likely to undermine UN-led peace efforts.

Gen Tammah was born in 1950 in Lahij province, in the south of Yemen. In 1986 he took part in the 11-day South Yemen Civil War, when factions of the ruling Yemeni Socialist Party clashed.

Eight years later he fought again, this time in Yemen’s two-month civil war between north and south. In July 1994 Gen Tammah fled to the US. He lived in America for the next 13 years.

In 2007, he joined the Southern Movement and led troops in battles against forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

He was appointed commander of the Al Anad Airbase in 2015, where he was fatally wounded on Thursday. Yemen’s deputy chief of staff Saleh Al Zandani, senior army commander Fadel Hasan and Lahij governor Ahmad Al Turki were also injured in the attack.

Fayyad Al Noman, undersecretary at Yemen’s Information Ministry, said the strike was a “dangerous escalation” by the Houthis and showed Iran’s hand in supporting the rebels.

“The drone is run by experts from Tehran because the Houthis do not have the capability to carry out a high-technology operation and run a wireless system,” Mr Al Noman told The National.

The UN urged “all parties to the conflict to exercise restraint and refrain from further escalation”.

At talks in Sweden last month, the UN brokered agreements between the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed government, regarded as the best chance of ending nearly four years of conflict.

A new round of consultations, possibly in Kuwait and aimed at drafting a political framework for Yemen, is being worked on by the UN.