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| Arabia |
| Huthis Seize Airport in Key Yemeni City |
| 2015-03-23 |
| [AnNahar] Shiite militia in Yemen seized the airport in a key central city Sunday as deteriorating security prompted Washington to evacuate personnel and the U.N. Security Council to call an emergency session. The Security Council was to meet later Sunday after President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi called for "urgent intervention" amid mounting unrest, including suicide kabooms claimed by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... group that killed 142 people in the capital Sanaa on Friday. Impoverished but strategic Yemen has descended into chaos in recent months, with the Shiite militia, known as Huthis, seizing control of Sanaa and forcing Hadi to flee to the main southern city of Aden. The Arabian Peninsula country is increasingly divided between a north controlled by the Huthis, who are allegedly backed by Iran, and a south dominated by Hadi's allies. On Sunday the Huthis and their allies seized the airport in Taez, which is just 180 kilometers (110 miles) north of Aden on the road to Sanaa and seen as a strategic entry point to Hadi's refuge. Security sources told Agence La Belle France-Presse some 300 men, including Huthi fighters dressed in military uniforms and allied forces, had deployed at the airport and reinforcements were arriving from Sanaa by air and land. The forces allied with the Huthis included members of the former central security force, a unit seen as loyal to ex-president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... Saleh was forced from power in early 2012 after a year-long popular uprising and has been accused of working with the Huthis to restore his influence. - Protester killed - Security sources said Huthi A military source said troops loyal to Hadi and southern paramilitary forces had meanwhile deployed in restive Lahj ... a Yemeni governate located in the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. It is the stomping grounds on the southern secessionist al-Harak movement province north of Aden, in anticipation of a possible Huthi advance. Huthi Elsewhere, six rustics were killed in Qania, in Marib province, in a clash with Huthis advancing towards the eastern province, a tribal source said. The source claimed that 30 AFP could not verify the corpse counts with an independent source. Hadi, backed by Western and Gulf states as Yemen's legitimate ruler, has struggled to reassert his authority since escaping house arrest in Sanaa last month and fleeing to Aden. In a letter to the Security Council, he said the Huthis and their allies "not only threaten peace in Yemen but regional and international peace and security." He called for "urgent intervention by all available means to stop this aggression that is aimed at undermining the legitimate authority, the fragmentation of Yemen and its peace and stability." Hadi has been trying to cement his power base in Aden which he declared the temporary capital after he retracted a resignation tendered under Huthi pressure. - Iranian influence - On Thursday, his forces overran the special forces base in Aden after its commander rejected Hadi's decision to remove him. On Saturday he pledged to fight Iranian influence in Yemen, accusing the Huthis of importing Tehran's ideology. Hadi said he would ensure that "the Yemeni republic flag will fly on the Marran mountain in (the Huthis' northern stronghold) Saada, instead of the Iranian flag." |
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