SANAA // Local Sunni militiamen ejected Shiite Houthi rebels from much of the southern Yemeni city of Dalea on Monday, residents and combatants said, inflicting the first significant setback on the Iranian-backed rebels in two months of civil war.
Dalea had been a bastion of southern secessionists in Yemen before the Houthis took widespread control of the city in arch, after having seized the capital Sanaa in the north in September, toppling president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi, and then thrust into the centre and south of the country.
After two months of fighting in which much of Dalea has been destroyed, Sunni fighters on Monday turned the tide by seizing a key military base and the main security directorate in the city, militia sources and local residents said. Twelve Sunni fighters and 40 Houthi rebels were killed, they said.
“In intense fighting lasting from dawn until this afternoon, the southern resistance succeeded in cleansing our city of Houthi elements,” a front-line militiaman said.
Eyewitnesses said local forces in Dalea, which has an estimated population of 90,000, were backed by weeks of air strikes on Houthi positions as well as weapons drops which intensified in recent days.
A Saudi Arabia-led coalition has been bombing the Houthis and allied loyalists of ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh for two months while backing Sunni combatants along a jumbled series of battlefronts.
The Houthis, however, appear to remain the strongest faction in the civil war, retaining the edge in the main contested regions of central and South Yemen. The Houthis say they are fighting to root out corrupt officials and Sunni militants.
Saudi Arabia and fellow Gulf Arabs worry that the Shiiite Muslim Houthi movement’s allegiance to Iran will give the Islamic Republic a foothold in the Arabian Peninsula.
In the southern city of Taez, residents said Houthi fighters pushed back Sunni tribal and militiamen in heavy street combat, and that shelling hit a fuel storage tank which set off an explosion, killing 10 people.
“There’s a real massacre going on in Taez, the city that spearheaded the revolt” against Mr Saleh, one resident said.
“Saleh has aligned himself with the rebels to take revenge,” Bassam Al Qadhi added.
The clashes, which erupted on Sunday and raged overnight, have killed at least 30 Houthi rebels and allied forces, the official said.
He said a provisional toll showed at least five Hadi loyalists were also killed.
For a second consecutive day, rebels and their allies targeted several Taez neighbourhoods with rockets and tank shells, residents said.
With ground combat worsening, a Yemeni official said UN-sponsored peace talks set to be held in Geneva on May 28 had been postponed.
Yemen’s exiled government in Saudi Arabia led by Mr Hadi has demanded the Houthis recognise its authority and withdraw from Yemen’s main cities — two points demanded by a UN security council resolution last month.
“The Geneva meeting has been indefinitely postponed because the Houthis did not indicate their commitment to implement the Security Council resolution,” Sultan Al Atwani, an aide to Mr Hadi.
“Also, what is happening on ground — the attacks on Aden, Taez, Dalea and Shabwa makes it difficult to go to Geneva,” he added, naming southern provinces that have become war zones.
Ahmad Fawzi, a UN spokesman in Geneva, said he could not confirm the reports of a delay to talks, saying that plans were still under way for negotiations to start on Thursday.
The UN estimates that at least 1,037 civilians, including 130 women and 234 children, have been killed between March 26 and May 20. The cities of Saada and Aden have endured the most extensive damage to their infrastructure.
Humanitarian groups have said a five-day truce that ended last week was hardly enough to get aid in. The ceasefire was breached several times.
* Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Associated Press