The declared aim is to restore the internationally recognised government of president Abed Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who is now in Aden, having fled the capital, Sana’a, when the Houthis took over.
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The assault happened early Tuesday morning, with no less than one rocket flying over the military dividers now encompassing the 239-room inn and resort along the Arabian Sea, found west of the port city’s downtown.
Medical sources said that initial reports indicate that more than 18 people were killed during the attack, majority soldiers guarding the hotel.
Three explosions struck Yemen’s port city of Aden on Tuesday, including a blast at a hotel that is home to Cabinet members of the country’s exiled government, security officials said. The discrepancy could not be immediately reconciled.
The Yemeni prime minister has escaped unharmed after a hotel used by senior memebrs of the government was hit in a rocket attack.
They were also a blow for the Yemen government, which had only recently returned to Aden, a city that the coalition hoped would be safer for returning officials in the wake of the arrival of coalition ground forces, led by the U.A.E., said Katherine Zimmerman, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
The Associated Press could not independently verify the message, though it was released like others by the group and carried its logos. The report also documents the use of cluster bombs.
There was no immediate comment from the coalition on the IS claim.
They were Ahmed Khamis Al Hammadi and Mohammed Khalfan Al Seyabi, from Abu Dhabi, Ali Khamis Al Ketbi, from Al Ain, and Yousef Salem Al Kaabi, from Fujairah. We will continue in our endeavour until victory. “And it is close”.
Others fighting the Houthis include southern separatists, local militias and Sunni extremists like Yemen’s al-Qaida branch, considered by Washington to be the most-dangerous offshoot of the terror network.
Suicide bombings, or rocket attacks? Coalition countries and a few Yemeni officials had earlier blamed the Houthis for the attacks.
Hadi returned to Saudi Arabia Monday, where he met with King Salman.
The armed group made the claim through its affiliated accounts on Twitter on Tuesday, posting a series of photos depicting the bombings and pictures of the suicide attackers involved.
On Sept 4, a rebel missile attack in the eastern Yemeni province of Marib killed 67 coalition troops, including 52 Emirati soldiers. It was the heaviest military loss for the Emirates since its founding in 1971.
It said that transfers of arms and munitions used by members of the Saudi-led coalition to “commit violations of global humanitarian law, including war crimes in Yemen” must be suspended.
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The airstrikes by the coalition and ground battles in Yemen have left about 5,000 people dead, half of them civilians, and more than 1.5 million people displaced, according to United Nations figures.
