Yemeni army pushes Houthis from outpost in southern Yemen

The Yemeni army and allied fighters on Friday drove Houthi militants from a town that was one of the last positions they held in the country’s south, military sources and local officials said.

The forces advanced into Bayhan, about 300 km (190 miles) southeast of the Houthi-held capital Sanaa, killing dozens of the militants in clashes, the sources said.

Bayhan is important in Yemen’s war because it is located on a major road linking Shabwa province with Marib province, part of which is held by the Houthis, to the north. The army’s advance means that the Houthis have been expelled from most of Shabwa, sources said.

Yemen’s more than two-year-old war pits the Iran-allied Houthis, who control Sanaa, against a Saudi-led military alliance that backs the government now based in the southern port of Aden. The conflict has killed more than 10,000 people and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

The government-run Sabanew agency said the remaining Houthis had fled after battles for strategic positions in the Bayhan area which had left hundreds of them dead and wounded.

The agency said the army also seized other positions in the area, where the movement of heavy artillery had been difficult because of sand dunes.

This month the Saudi-led coalition, which is backed by U.S. and British weapons and intelligence, intensified air strikes after the Houthis killed former president Ali Abdullah Saleh when he switched sides in the civil war. There has been relatively little change in positions on the ground around the capital.

On political side, Yemen’s official government, based in the temporary capital Aden, confirmed undertaking internationally-backed negotiations and understandings with all Yemeni parties in order to align against militias ravaging the country.

It affirmed that it continues to hold an open-to-discussion policy when it comes to late ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh allies. Saleh was killed shortly after renouncing his position in the national coup.

Headed by President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, the constitutionally acknowledged government said that, its reaching out to former coup allies, is to unite all Yemeni fronts and counter the spreading violence of Iran-backed Houthi militias.

“Efforts exerted and the international understandings that are being worked out with the people who were close to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh came to unite the political, military and social blocs to confront the Houthi militias hostile to Yemen and neighboring countries,” Hadi government spokesman Rajih Badi told Asharq al-Awsat.

Badi also said that Houthi militias impose a dire threat to the whole international community.

He added that efforts to unify the ranks under one banner to confront the Iran-aligned militias have achieved great success.

The spokesman also stated at details being announced in the near future.

"If the political, military and social blocs do not unite under a single trench to defend Yemen and its Arabism against Iranian agenda, which has nothing to do with the Arabs, the Yemenis will lose a lot," he said.

He pointed out that President Hadi spoke after Saleh’s killing in with an empathetic and tolerant approach, saying that the hands of the Yemeni government is extended to all individuals and parties who will stand in the face of Houthi militias.

Yemen’s war pits the Iran-allied Houthis who control Sanaa against a Saudi-led Arab Coalition backing the legitimate government led by Hadi.

Saleh had helped the Houthis win control of much of the country’s north including Sana’a, and his decision to switch allegiances and abandon the Houthis was the most dramatic change on the battlefield in years. But the Houthis swiftly crushed a pro-Saleh uprising in the capital and shot him dead in an attack on his convoy. 

Tens of thousands of Houthi supporters staged a rally in the capital on Tuesday to show support for their leader and celebrate the death of Saleh.