Saudi-led coalition forces launched an offensive on Monday with local forces to push Houthi fighters out of Taiz, Yemen’s third largest city, and Hadi is said to have come to help to oversee it.
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At least 30 fighters were killed yesterday, including 16 soldiers after their vehicle hit a landmine, military sources said.
“The military operation to liberate Taez has begun after the arrival of military reinforcements from the Arab coalition, resistance forces and the national army in the south and west of Taez province”, General Ahmed al-Yafie, commander of the fourth military region, said.
It is Hadi’s second visit to Aden since a loose alliance of anti-Houthi fighters, backed by troops from the UAE, drove the rebels out of the southern city in July.
The rebel-controlled Saba news agency said the insurgents repelled attempts to advance on four fronts toward Waziaa.
He said the Saudi-dominated coalition is backing the army and resistance with air raids and with scores of armoured vehicles sent to the army over the past weeks.
Taez has seen heavy fighting in recent months between the Huthi rebels and forces of Hadi’s internationally recognised government.
Military sources told the Yemen Post that the Houthis fired missiles against the pro-government fighters, who were deployed as reinforcements to back the forces to retake Taiz while passing in the town of Dhubab on the Red Sea.
President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi arrived in the southern port city of Aden in a bid to recapture the city of Taiz, according to a presidency official.
An Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia on Monday carried out intensive airstrikes on several positions held by the Shia Houthi militant group in Yemen’s southwestern Taiz province.
Sudanese forces from the strategic Al-Anad airbase in Lahj are taking part in the Taez operations, according to the sources. The United Nations says that a few 5,000 people, more than half of them civilians, have been killed in Yemen since the Saudi-led intervention began.
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A new round of UN-brokered Yemen talks to end the conflict is expected to kick off in Geneva this month.
