Officials: Military leader killed in fighting for Yemen city

CAIRO — Clashes betwixt Yemeni authorities forces and the country’s Houthi rebels attacking the cardinal cardinal metropolis of Marib killed a elder subject commandant connected Monday, officials said.

The improvement is simply a large stroke to the forces of Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which person been warring for months against the Iranian-backed Houthis’ effort to instrumentality Marib. The Houthis launched an violative earlier this twelvemonth connected the metropolis successful an effort to implicit their power implicit the bluish fractional of Yemen.

Maj. Gen. Nasser al-Zubiani, who headed subject operations of the government’s equipped forces, was killed connected the beforehand enactment successful the Balaq upland range, southbound of the metropolis of Marib, said the 2 officials, speaking connected information of anonymity due to the fact that they were not authorized to speech to the media.

Al-Zubiani was inspecting authorities troops and allied tribal fighters trying to stave disconnected the Houthi onslaught astatine the time. Government forces had earlier precocious a fewer kilometers (miles) pursuing fierce battles southbound of the city, 1 of the officials said.

The rebels stepped up attacks connected Marib successful caller weeks, sending waves of fighters to effort and breach authorities defenses. Hundreds died successful the clashes, mostly rebels, the authoritative added.

A Saudi-led coalition, which is warring connected the broadside of the authorities forces, said it launched astatine slightest 35 airstrikes connected rebel positions astir Marib implicit the weekend, sidesplitting astatine slightest 200 Houthis. At slightest 3 much airstrikes deed the rebels successful Yemen’s occidental coast, it said.

The Houthi violative connected Marib came arsenic they suffered blows elsewhere successful the country. Last month, authorities forces took the territory of Hays and a large road linking the contested larboard metropolis of Hodeida with the rebel-held superior of Sanaa.

Yemen’s civilian warfare began successful 2014 erstwhile the Houthis took Sanaa and overmuch of the bluish portion of the country, forcing President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s authorities to fly to the south, past to Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi-led coalition, backed astatine the clip by the U.S., entered the warfare months aboriginal to effort restoring Hadi to power. Despite a relentless aerial run and crushed fighting, the warfare has deteriorated into a stalemate, sidesplitting much than 130,000 radical — civilians and fighters — and spawning the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The escalating unit successful Marib and elsewhere successful Yemen comes arsenic the United Nations has stepped up efforts to relaunch negotiations betwixt the warring sides to find a solution to the conflict.

The U.N. peculiar envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, met with Omani officials and the main Houthi negotiator, Mohammed Abdul-Salam, successful Oman’s superior of Muscat, the U.N. ngo said Monday, without specifying erstwhile the gathering took place. Oman has agelong acted arsenic mediator successful Middle East disputes.

The U.N. ngo said Grundberg discussed “ways to de-escalate the violence” successful Yemen and relaunch “a governmental dialog aimed astatine reaching a broad and inclusive settlement.”