ADEN: Yemen’s Houthi rebels made broad gains in the country’s south and east on Friday despite a second day of Saudi-led air strikes meant to check the Iranian-backed militia’s efforts to overthrow President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Shi’ite Muslim Houthi fighters and allied army units gained their first foothold on Yemen’s Arabian Sea coast by seizing the port of Shaqra 100km (60 miles) east of Aden, residents told Reuters.
Explosions and crackles of small gunfire rang out across Aden late on Friday as Houthis made a push on the southern port city’s airport, a witness said.
The advances threaten Hadi’s last refuge in Yemen and potentially undermine the air campaign to support him.
The spokesman for the Saudi-led operation, Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri, told a news conference in Riyadh that defending the Aden government was the campaign’s “main objective”.
“The operation will continue as long as there is a need for it to continue,” Asseri said.
Warplanes targeted Houthi forces controlling Yemen’s capital Sanaa and their northern heartland on Friday. Asseri said that planes from the United Arab Emirates had carried out their first strikes in the past 24 hours.
In a boost for Saudi Arabia, Morocco said it would join the rapidly assembled Sunni Muslim coalition against the Houthis. Pakistan, named by Saudi Arabia as a partner, said it had made no decision on whether to contribute.
Riyadh’s military intervention is the latest front in a growing regional contest for power with Iran that is also playing out in Syria, where Tehran backs Assad’s government against mainly Sunni rebels, and Iraq, where Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias are playing a major role in fighting.
Sunni monarchies in the Gulf are backing Hadi and his fellow Sunnis in the country’s south against the Shi’ite advance.
Yemen’s powerful ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, whose military units fight alongside the Houthis, called on Friday for a cessation of hostilities by both sides, according to a statement carried by his party’s website.
Yemeni Foreign Minister Riyadh Yaseen said the air campaign could end within days.
He said the door was still open for dialogue with the Houthis, while in a Facebook posting, Hadi urged Yemenis to be patient and predicted the Houthis would soon be gone.
But the Houthis and allied army units seized the southern town of Shaqra in Abyan province on Friday, gaining access to the Arabian Sea, residents said.
Their entry into the city means they control most land routes to Aden and can block tribal fighters trying to come in to reinforce Hadi’s troops.
Residents said dozens of pickup trucks loaded with tribal fighters have reached the town of Mudyah and were expected to clash with the Houthi forces based in Shaqra and the town of Lodar. (Reuters)
