Yemeni loyalists battle rebels for key air base

ADEN — Loyalist forces began a major offensive Monday aimed at retaking Yemen's largest air base which is held by rebels, as troops from the Saudi-led coalition entered recaptured second city Aden.

The pro-government troops deployed heavy armour supplied by their backers in the assault on Al Anad base, some 60 kilometres north of Aden, military sources said.

"The battle to retake Al Anad base has begun," a military source told AFP.

Hundreds of troops and militia equipped with tanks and armoured vehicles supplied by the coalition deployed around the base before Monday's attack, their commander Fadhl Hassan said.

Another source said Saudi-led warplanes were providing air cover for the loyalist forces, who launched the offensive from a mountainous region west of the base.

Al Anad, in southern Lahj province, housed US troops overseeing a drone war against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula until shortly before Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels overran it in March.

An officer taking part in the offensive told AFP the troops had reached the western entrance of Al Anad by mid-afternoon on Monday.

But an attempt to break into the base from the south failed and loyalist forces met "stiff resistance" from the rebels, added the officer who asked not to be named.

Fierce fighting was under way outside the base and "several" people were killed on both sides, he said.

Another officer said that coalition warplanes helped loyalists on the ground by launching new raids, destroying two rebel tanks and four vehicles and killing those inside, he said.

Retaking Al Anad would help bolster security in Aden, whose liberation the government of exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi announced in mid-July.

It would also open the way to loyalist forces to push further north against the Houthis, who have enjoyed strong support on the ground from fighters close to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

'1,500 troops enter Aden' 

The rebel advance in Yemen, which took them all the way into the port city of Aden, Hadi's last refuge before going into exile with his government in Saudi Arabia, came after they captured Sanaa last year.

On Sunday, hundreds of Gulf Arab troops from the coalition entered Aden using tanks and other armour "to help secure" it, a military source told AFP.

The Saudi-owned Al Hayat newspaper said 1,500 troops, most of them from the United Arab Emirates, had reached Aden.

The UAE is a member of the coalition which has carried out more than four months of air strikes targeting the rebels and their allies.

Military sources spoke of further progress by loyalist forces who they said had recaptured Houta, the provincial capital of Lahj, and seized Al Ribat highway, north of Aden.

Aden has been devastated by four months of coalition air strikes and fighting on the ground.

The city is badly scarred, with gutted buildings and broken sewerage pipes, and is deprived of water and electricity supplies.

Residents desperate for supplies 

Aid relief has trickled in since pro-government forces forced the rebels out, and distribution of desperately needed supplies for Aden's embattled residents has begun.

The airport reopened on July 22, allowing planes to land with supplies from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

The United Nations says the war has killed nearly 4,000 people, half of them civilians, while 80 per cent of the 21-million population of the impoverished Arabian Peninsula nation needs aid and protection.

The Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti across the Gulf of Aden appealed on Monday for aid after a new influx of refugees from the Yemen conflict.

Almost 10,000 Yemenis — many of them wounded — have arrived in the small state since late March, according to UN refugee agency the UNHCR.

Despite losing Aden, the rebels in Yemen remain in control of large swathes of Yemen.

Late Sunday, rebel chief Abdulmalik Al Houthi said a political settlement was "still possible" with the exiled government, after the failure of UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva in June.

"We would welcome any [mediation] effort by a neutral party — Arab or international," he said in a speech broadcast by the rebels' Al Masira television station.

He also downplayed Aden's recapture, saying the loyalist advance "will collapse".