Arab Coalition targets sites of Houthi militias in Herd

An Arab coalition airstrike has killed a Houthi militia figure along with four others northwest of the Hajjah province on Sunday. Houthi militant leader, Taha Saleh Muqbel al-Anhoumi, was killed along with four other militias, while they were on their way to Midi city to meet with other militias, Houthi affiliated media reported.

Yemen’s National Army regained control of a number of new sites where the militias were based in the Directorate of Musloub west of al-Jawf province following intense fighting. In the neighboring province of Saada, military sources reported casualties among the Houthi militias as a result of intensive aerial bombardment from coalition aircraft.

Classrooms in Yemen’s capital and rebel-held north remained largely empty on the first official day of school Sunday, as war, hunger and an economic collapse leave millions struggling to survive.

“The future of 4.5 million students hangs in the balance,” Rajat Madhok, spokesman of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Yemen, told AFP. A union strike over the suspension of teachers’ salaries has ground education in areas controlled by the Iran-backed Al Houthi rebels to a halt, three years into a war between the Iran-backed rebel alliance and a government backed by Saudi Arabia.

UNICEF estimates 13,146 schools, or 78 per cent of all of Yemen’s schools, have been hit by the salary crunch, many of them unable to open for the first day of school. Nearly 500 schools have been destroyed by the conflict, repurposed as shelters or commandeered by armed factions in a war that has killed thousands and pushed the country to the brink of famine.

Schools in the capital Sana’a and across northern Yemen were forced to delay the September 30 start of the scholastic year by two weeks after the rebels failed to pay teachers’ salaries. In government-held parts of Yemen, however, most schools this year opened as scheduled on October 1.

Al Houthi-controlled areas became unable to pay the salaries after the internationally-recognised president Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi was forced to move the central bank to Aden in August after the Iran-backed rebels had looted the funds to pay soldiers and fighters waging war against it. Hadi came to power in early 2012 after massive Arab Spring protests ousted former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Hadi was forced to decamp to the city of Aden after escaping Al Houthi-imposed house arrest after the rebels took over the government in a coup in 2014. Since then, Hadi has shifted government headquarters to Aden from where he has led an offensive to liberate Al Houthi-occupied territories.

With help from the Saudi-led Arab coalition, the Yemeni army has achieved widespread gains in many provinces, but Al Houthis still control the capital, Sana’a, and most northern provinces including Hodeida, Ibb, Mahweet, Yareem, Amran, Baydha and Hajja.

A “Houthi” minister in the Sanaa coup government accused on Sunday former president Ali Abdullah Saleh of killing political leaders during his tenure.

Hassan Zaid, who holds the post of minister of Youth and Sports within the illegitimate Houthi government in Sanaa, wrote on his Facebook account on Sunday that “impertinence and cruelty that can reach the level of atrocity is embodied in the refusal of head of the General People’s Congress party to uncover the fate of the forced hidden Nasserite leaders.”

Zaid threatened the former president of opening the file of “illicit gains.” The Houthi minister said he would not stop digging in the files of corruption and assassinations, the smuggling of weapons, in addition to giving up state lands.

In August, a war of words between the two previous allies, Houthi and Saleh’s supporters, exploded into a military confrontation when militants believed to be linked to Saleh’s Republican Guards fired at a Houthi military position in the Joulat al-Misbaha where the two groups exchanged fires in the presence of a high-security deployment. Reports said the clashes erupted after Houthi fighters tried to set up a security checkpoint near the home of Saleh in Sana’a.

Last August, Zaid also confessed that, around two years ago, he had asked the head of the so-called Supreme Political Council, Saleh al-Samad, to assassinate President Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi and place him under house arrest in the Yemeni capital.

He also revealed that Saleh was granting military ranks to Qaeda militants and accused the former president of using them to assassinate academics, military officials and security leaders. “The former regime of Saleh was granting military grades and was hiring hundreds of guards to protect armed bandits and Qaeda members who were later tasked to kill patriots from the military, security and academic leadership,” he said.