A Saudi-led coalition trying to halt the advance of Yemen’s Shiite rebels airdropped weapons to beleaguered fighters in a southern port city Friday, as the Houthis withdrew from the presidential palace in Aden.
The impoverished country has sunk further into chaos since the coalition headed by Riyadh launched Operation Decisive Storm on March 26 to try to halt the advance by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
The turmoil has raised fears that Al-Qaeda will expand its foothold in the deeply tribal country, which borders Saudi Arabia and lies near key shipping routes.
The Sunni extremists captured the regional army headquarters Friday in Mukalla, capital of the southeastern province of Hadramawt, with no resistance, a military official said.
The militants now control almost all of the city, where they stormed a prison and freed 300 inmates a day earlier.
Meanwhile, two more Saudi soldiers were killed on the border with Yemen, the Interior Ministry said.
“Two soldiers from the border guards were martyred during an exchange of fire at a border point in Asir region” in Saudi Arabia’s southwest, said the ministry’s spokesman cited by the official Saudi Press Agency.The deaths come a day after the ministry announced the first casualty – a soldier shot from across the border in the same area – since the kingdom launched a campaign against the Houthis.
U.N. aid chief Valerie Amos said Thursday that 519 people had been killed and nearly 1,700 wounded in two weeks of fighting, adding that she was “extremely concerned” for the safety of trapped civilians.
The conflict has sent tensions soaring between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Tehran has angrily rejected accusations of arming the rebels, who have allied with military units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh to seize large parts of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa.
After a night of intense coalition bombardment, rebel forces withdrew from President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi’s palace in Aden, a senior official said. They had captured the hilltop complex a day earlier in a symbolic blow to Hadi, who has fled to Saudi Arabia.
“The Houthi militia and their allies withdrew before dawn from the Al-Maashiq palace,” the official in Aden said.
The rebel forces retreated to the nearby central district of Khor Maksar, where 12 rebels were reported dead in an overnight attack by pro-Hadi militiamen. The coalition airdropped rifles, ammunition and communications equipment to Hadi supporters in Aden battling to prevent its fall, a port official said.
In Riyadh, coalition spokesman Gen. Ahmad Assiri confirmed the parachute drop of “logistical support of all kinds.” He also told reporters that coalition aircraft Thursday destroyed “military equipment and missiles” stocked by the rebels on Myun island in the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait.
In Mukalla, several hundred Al-Qaeda militants flying the black banner of the extremist network were seen patrolling and setting up roadblocks. Members of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula launched calls from mosques in the city for “jihad against Shiites,” according to residents.
“Yemen is gradually drifting toward a civil war of a confessional nature” which “recalls the early days of the Syrian and Iraqi crises,” Mathieu Guidere, professor at France’s University of Toulouse, said.
Al-Qaeda militants Thursday overran Mukalla, the provincial capital of the country’s largest province, Hadramawt, seizing government buildings and freeing inmates from a prison, including a top Saudi-born leader.
Hadramawt’s governor, Adel Ba-hamed, described the fall of Mukalla as part of a “scenario aimed at dragging the province and its residents” into the chaos across Yemen.
“The changes are terrifying,” activist Mohammad al-Sharafi said, adding that he was worried Al-Qaeda’s presence would bring the Houthis to fight the militants, which in turn could invite Saudi-led airstrikes.
Before the latest chaos erupted, Yemen had been a key U.S. ally in the fight against Al-Qaeda, allowing Washington to carry out drone attacks on its territory. The government’s collapse forced theUnited States to close its embassy and withdraw special operations forces that were helping Yemeni forces battle AQAP.
As a result of the U.S. pullout, “our capability is diminished” against AQAP, a senior military official in Washington said Thursday. As part of its logistical support for the Saudi-led campaign, the United States will provide aerial refuelling, the official said.
The United States was also delivering intelligence from surveillance satellites and aircraft to help the Saudis monitor their border and to track Houthi rebels as they push south, the official added. The intelligence was helping create “a battlefield picture” of where the Houthis were deployed and to enable coalition aircraft to avoid causing civilian casualties, the official said.
New clashes were reported Friday in areas near the Aden palace and the city’s international airport, which was bombarded during the night by coalition warships, according to military sources. They said a plane parked at the airport was destroyed.
