Saudi shells hit Yemen aid office, killing 5 — local official

CAIRO/DUBAI — Saudi shells hit an international aid office in Yemen on Thursday killing five Ethiopian refugees, a local official said, while efforts continued to mount peace talks between exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi's government and Houthi rebels.

The official said that 10 other refugees were wounded when artillery fire and air strikes hit the town of Maydee along Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia in Hajja province, a stronghold of the Iran-allied Houthi group that a Saudi-led Arab alliance has been bombing for eight weeks.

Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri said there was no coalition activity in the area. "If the report is correct, it would be the responsibility of the Houthis, who have a big presence in the area," Asseri told Reuters by telephone.

UN Chief Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday announced peace talks for Geneva on May 28 to try to find a way out of the crisis that triggered outside intervention by an Arab coalition on March 26.

Rajeh Badi, spokesman for Hadi's government, said consultations were held by the government in the Saudi capital Riyadh over timing, agenda and preparations for the conference.

Badi cast doubt on Houthi intentions to join the talks, saying the leader of the group Abdel Malek Al Houthi, had effectively scuttled the plan by calling in a speech on Wednesday for a holy war and stepping up conscription.

Front lIine

The Saudi-Yemen frontier has in some cases become a frontline between the two sides, and the Houthis' Al Masira TV channel broadcast footage on Wednesday it said showed its fighters entering a Saudi border post after being fired on by Saudi tanks and helicopters.

"[Saudi] military hardware was deployed, but after a few moments they vanished, fleeing the Yemeni advance," the channel said.

Houthi media said the group had seized a border position and killed over two dozen Saudi troops, reports flatly denied by Riyadh.

Asseri said the Houthis regularly target Saudi positions along the border and that Saudi forces respond, but he said there were no exceptional clashes on Thursday.

Residents and local fighters opposing the Houthis said air strikes hit a southern air base controlled by the militia and their positions outside the southern city of Aden on Thursday.

Tribal and militia fighters in Yemen's south support the Arab campaign and back president Hadi, who lives in exile with his government in Saudi Arabia.

Arab air strikes and heavy ground fighting seized the central city of Taiz, another focal point of the internal war, and tribal sources said they made gains against the Houthis in the far northern province of Al Jawf, where the Houthis said Saudi-led air strikes killed 15 people.

Aid ship bound for DjIibouti

An Iranian aid ship bound for the Houthi-controlled Red Sea Port of Hodaida in Yemen appeared to be headed to Djibouti for inspection on Thursday, ship-tracking data showed.

Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said the ship would submit to UN inspections in the Horn of Africa country, avoiding a potential regional showdown between Riyadh and Tehran.

The Iran Shahed had been escorted by Iranian warships, and Saudi-led forces have enforced inspections on vessels entering Yemeni ports to prevent arms supplies from reaching the Houthis.

Asseri said the coalition had given the ship a choice to either unload its cargo in Djibouti for the United Nations to deliver to Yemen or submit to an inspection by the coalition if it wanted to continue on to Hodaida Port.