Yemen leader reshuffles Cabinet to smooth differences

ADEN — Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi reshuffled his Cabinet Tuesday, naming new foreign and interior ministers after signs of discord within the government of the war-torn country.

The shake-up comes as anti-rebel forces struggle to push Iran-backed Houthi insurgents out of the southwestern province of Taez, which could facilitate retaking the capital Sanaa.

Abdulmalek Al Mikhlafi, who leads a team of government peace negotiators, was sworn in as foreign minister, replacing Riad Yassin, the Saba state news agency reported.

The replacement of Yassin, who is said to have good relations with Hadi but not with Prime Minister Khaled Bahah, is understood to be aimed at smoothing relations between the president and the premier.

"The reshuffle is mainly to replace Yassin who had differences with Bahah," a source close to the prime minister said.

Among other changes, General Hussein Arab was appointed interior minister, replacing General Abdo Al Huzeifi, who will lead the country's intelligence services, Saba said citing presidential decrees.

Hadi also named a new minister of transport, Salah Al Shanfara, who told AFP that he had rejected the nomination.

“I am head of the Supreme Council of the Southern Movement and we are in revolution and will not accept positions,” he said, referring to the secessionist movement that wants independence for Yemen’s south.

The south was independent between the end of British colonial rule in 1967 and its union with the north in 1990.

A secession attempt four years later sparked a brief but bloody civil war that ended with northern forces occupying the region.

The separatists have played a key role in a government-led offensive that has recaptured five southern provinces, including Aden, since July from rebels who overran them earlier this year.

A Saudi-led coalition has been backing pro-Hadi forces since March.

But the pro-government forces have faced fierce resistance in their bid to wrest back control of Taez province and break a siege of loyalists holed up in its provincial capital.

Six civilians were killed and 22 were wounded in rebel mortar and artillery shelling Tuesday on residential parts of Taez city, medics and local government sources said.

Clashes raged on between pro-Hadi forces and rebels across the province, witnesses said.

Further south in the Shuraija region of Taez province, Sudanese troops taking part in the coalition arrived from Al Anad Air Base, where they had been stationed, to support the pro-Hadi forces battling the rebels, military sources said.

Hadi, a southerner, returned to Aden last month from exile in Riyadh where he fled in late March as the Houthis closed in.

The United Nations says more than 5,700 people have been killed in the fighting since March, nearly half of them civilians.