Yemen rebels seize presidential palace in Aden

Aden // Yemen’s Houthi rebels and their allies seized president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi’s palace in Aden on Thursday, overcoming resistance from the self-exiled leader’s loyalists and despite Saudi-led airstrikes.

Amid the chaos created by the Iran-backed rebels’ seizure of large areas of the country, Al Qaeda fighters freed one of its top leaders along with hundreds of other prisoners after storming the city of Mukalla.

The rebels’ advance deep into Aden, the last bastion of Mr Hadi’s supporters, came after days of fierce fighting around the city.

“Dozens of Houthi militia and their allies arrived in armoured troop carriers and entered Al Maashiq presidential palace,” a senior security official said.

Heavy clashes erupted afterwards between the rebels and their opponents inside the compound, a cluster of buildings perched on a hilltop accessible by a single winding road.

A defence ministry official in Aden said the palace was now controlled by forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, which have allied with the Houthis.

A Saudi-led regional coalition launched an air strikes against the Houthis last week after the rebels advanced on Aden, where Mr Hadi set up his government after escaping house arrest by the Houthis in Sanaa in February.

At least 44 people – including 18 civilians – were reported dead in fighting between opponents and supporters of Mr Hadi in the southern port city on Thursday.

“There are bodies and wounded in the streets and nobody dares to approach,” said Khaled Al Shaie, a resident in the central neighbourhood of Crater.

The coalition on Thursday suffered its first casualties when a Saudi border guard was killed and 10 others injured in gunfire from Yemen.

The Saudi interior ministry said the guards in the Asir region came “under fire from a mountainous interior zone”.

Saudi Arabia has massed its forces along the Yemen border but says it has no plans for now to send ground forces into the neighbouring country.

A Saudi adviser on Thursday denied that special forces from the kingdom had landed in Aden, saying they were troops linked to Mr Saleh.

The fighters who went ashore in Aden were “Yemeni special forces loyal to Saleh who landed by small boat” to secure a district of Aden, the adviser said.

In the coastal city of Mukalla in southeast Yemen, Al Qaeda militants stormed a prison in Hadramawt province and freed more than 300 inmates, including Khalid Batarfi, a top regional commander.

Batarfi is known for his role in in 2011-12 offensive by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemen-based branch of the terror group that is considered its deadliest by the United States, during which extremists seized large parts of south and east Yemen.

A security official said he had been held for more than four years.

Two guards and five inmates were killed in the raid, the official said.

Al Qaeda militants also clashed on Thursday with troops guarding the local administration complex in Mukalla, a branch of the central bank and the police headquarters, the official said.

Fighting also broke out at the harbour and around a presidential palace in the city.

The militants met no resistance as they seized the local radio headquarters, security officials said.

Before the latest chaos erupted, Yemen had been a key US ally in the fight against AQAP, allowing Washington to carry out a longstanding drone war on its territory.

In the southern province of Dhaleh, Houthis killed 40 rebel fighters who tried to desert after their commander urged them to lay down their arms because of the intense air strikes, military sources said.

Diplomats in New York said Gulf countries were locked in tough negotiations with Russia on a UN draft resolution to impose an arms embargo and sanctions on the rebels.

* Agence France-Presse