Houthi militia forces in Yemen backed by allied army units seized an air base yesterday and appeared close to capturing the southern port of Aden from defenders loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, residents said.
The United States said that Hadi, who has been holed up in Aden since fleeing the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa last month, was no longer at his residence. It offered no other details on his movements.
After taking al-Anad air base, the Houthis and their military allies, supported by heavy armour, advanced to within 20 km of Aden.
Soldiers at Aden’s Jabal al-Hadeed barracks fired into the air to prevent residents from entering the base and arming themselves, witnesses said, suggesting that Hadi’s control over the city was fraying.
Houthi fighters and allied military units had advanced to Dar Saad, a village a half-hour’s drive from central Aden, residents there said. Earlier, unidentified warplanes fired missiles at the Aden neighbourhood where Hadi’s compound is located, residents said. Anti-aircraft batteries opened fire on the planes.
President Hadi has left his residence
The city’s airport was closed and all flights were cancelled for security reasons, guards at the facility said. Yemen’s slide towards civil war has made the country a crucial front in mostly Sunni Saudi Arabia’s rivalry with Shi’ite Iran, which Riyadh accuses of stirring up sectarian strife through its support for the Houthis.
Sunni Arab monarchies around Yemen have condemned the Shi’ite Houthi takeover as a coup and have mooted a military intervention in favour of Hadi in recent days.
US officials say Saudi Arabia is moving heavy military equipment including artillery to areas near its border with Yemen, raising the risk that the Middle East’s top oil power will be drawn into the worsening Yemeni conflict.
Saudi sources said the build-up, which also included tanks, was purely defensive.
While the battle for Aden is publicly being waged by the Houthi movement, many believe that the real instigator of the campaign is former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Anti-Houthi protesters seek refuge as pro-Houthi police troopers use tear gas to disperse them in Yemen’s southwestern city of Taiz yesterday.It was Saleh who was the author of Aden’s previous humiliation in 1994, when as president he crushed a southern secessionist uprising in a short war.
Unlike other regional leaders deposed in the Arab Spring, Saleh was allowed to remain in the country. Army loyalists close to Saleh yesterday warned against foreign interference, saying on his party website that Yemen would confront such a move “with all its strength”.
Diplomats say they suspect the Houthis want to take Aden before an Arab summit this weekend, to preempt an expected attempt by Hadi ally Saudi Arabia to rally Arab support at the gathering for military intervention in Yemen.
Yemeni officials denied reports that Hadi had fled Aden. But in Washington, a US State Department spokeswoman said Hadi had left his residence.
“We were in touch with him earlier today,” spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a briefing.
“He is no longer at his residence. I’m not in position to confirm any additional details from here about his location.”
The Arab League will today discuss a proposal by Yemen’s Foreign Minister, who called on Arab states to intervene militarily to halt the Houthi advance.