Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Yemen on
Thursday asked the UN Security Council to increase pressure on Houthi
militias to respect a cease-fire deal. In a letter, the three
governments accused the militias of violating the agreement in the port
city of Hodeidah 970 times since it came into force on Dec. 18, 2018.
They asked the council to “impress upon the Houthis, and their Iranian
backers, that they will be held responsible if their continued failure
to comply... leads to the collapse of the Stockholm agreement.”
Yemen’s coalition-backed government and Houthi leaders agreed to the
cease-fire and a redeployment of forces from Hodeidah during UN-brokered
talks in Sweden last month.
UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash met with UN
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres separately on Thursday to discuss
problems in implementing the Stockholm deal.
“We understand that we need to exercise patience, but it can’t be
infinite,” Gargash said. “We do not want to launch an offensive. What we
want is for the UN and the international community to exert influence.”
The council also met behind closed doors to hear a report from UN envoy
Martin Griffiths, after a fresh round of diplomatic talks with both
sides.
A Yemeni army spokesman, Brig. Abdo Majali, said that the militias had
violated the cease-fire in Hodeidah more than 760 times in the two weeks
after it went into effect alone, including bombing residential
neighborhoods, hospitals and schools.
He also accused Iran of complicity, saying it supported the militias by
providing them with illegal munitions and land mines, later planted in
populated areas.
Extensive air raid
Houthi commander Abdullah Jahaf, meanwhile, was killed in a coalition
airstrike in the northwestern province of Hajjah, Al Arabiya reported on
Friday.
The coalition also attacked a site east of the capital Sanaa on
Thursday, which the Houthis had used to store drones, coalition
spokesman Col. Turki Al-Maliki said.
The operation came after extensive intelligence gathering revealed a
network of Houthi operational infrastructure, he explained, including
workshops and launch sites, and came in the wake of a drone being shot
down in Saudi airspace on Wednesday.
Military operation
The Yemeni army, with support from the Arab coalition, launched a new
operation on Thursday to retake strategic sites taken by Houthi militias
in Kataf in Saada province.
In a statement to the Yemeni News Agency, a Yemeni army spokesman said
that troops from the 82nd Infantry Brigade had retaken the strategic
Jabal Al-Qahar mountains, as well as the villages of Rafqua, Al-Halfa’,
Al-Akimi, and Al-Markib, that had previously witnessed large scale
displacement of local residents.
He added that a number of Houthi militants, including two senior
commanders, had been killed, while three more had been captured.
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