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Airstrikes target Yemen’s rebel-held Defense Ministry

A leading figure within Al Qaeda was among the dead, he said.

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The General People s Congress said it had not yet received a formal invitation from the United Nations but the UN envoy met with party representatives in the rebel-held capital in late May as part of his efforts to convene the Geneva talks.

The United States welcomes the June 6 announcement that the UN-facilitated consultations among Yemeni stakeholders will begin in Geneva on June 14.

President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi was pressured to flee into exile in Saudi Arabia through the Huthi advance on Aden.

The Saudi-led military coalition also launched air strikes on the Yemeni Defense Ministry compound in Sanaa, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

The coalition, which includes the UAE, also struck Houthi fighters in the oil-producing Marib province and killed 10 Houthis, tribal sources said.

Overnight, heavy airstrikes targeted rebel positions in the southern cities of Aden and Ataq, and the northern city of Saada – a rebel stronghold, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. In a statement released Monday, the group said she specialized in vocational training and was killed while helping wounded civilians during an attack in the area.

45 people are said to have been killed following the airstrikes on a rebel-held armed forces headquarters in central Sanaa, according to AFP.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said that talks between his government and a Houthi delegation visiting Moscow had been “constructive and fruitful”, and that Russia has urged the rebel group, and all Yemeni rivals, to go to the UN peace talks, which are set to take place in the Swiss city on June 14, without setting preconditions. They had initially been scheduled for 28 May, but were postponed after Hadi demanded the Houthis first withdraw from seized territory.

The clashes erupted ahead of UN-sponsored talks in Geneva next week aimed at ending a conflict that has drawn in Saudi Arabia and some of its allies on one side and the Iranian-backed Houthis and ex- president Ali Abdullah Saleh on the other.

Several cars were burned in the attacks, Arabic-language al-Masirah satellite television network reported.

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Airstrikes target Yemen's rebel-held Defense Ministry