Houthis push into Aden as al Qaeda jailbreak frees hundreds

Dozens of unidentified troops arrived in Aden Thursday as Houthi fighters also advanced into the southern Yemeni city, officials said. The moves come as suspected al Qaeda militants stormed a prison and freed at least 300 inmates in Mukalla.

It was not immediately possible to verify the nationality of the troops, but a Saudi-led coalition which has been trying to stem advances by the Iran-allied Houthis says it is in control of the waters around Aden.

Residents of the city, which is the last major foothold of forces loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, told Reuters there were hundreds of Houthi and allied fighters in Crater, backed by tanks and armoured vehicles.

It was the first time fighting on the ground had reached so deep into the centre of Yemen’s biggest port city, and came despite a week of air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition aimed at stemming the Houthi advances.

Saudi Arabia said Thursday that a soldier was shot dead and 10 more wounded by gunfire from across the Yemeni border, its first casualties since beginning air strikes against Shiite rebels a week ago in conjunction with a coalition of mainly Sunni Arab allies.

The border guards at a post in the kingdom's southwestern Asir region came "under fire from a mountainous interior zone", the interior ministry said in a statement cited by the official Saudi Press Agency.

Hadi’s foreign minister Reyad Yassin Abdulla appealed on Wednesday for ground troops and more international action to halt the Iran-backed fighters before they take over the city entirely.

Al Qaeda jailbreak

In the Arabian Sea port of Mukalla, 500 km (300 miles) east of Aden, suspected al Qaeda fighters stormed the central prison and freed several hundred prisoners, many of them al Qaeda detainees, local police sources said.

Khalid Batarfi, a senior al Qaeda figure who had been held for more than four years, was among at least 300 prisoners who escaped from the jail in Hadramawt province, a security official told AFP. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or AQAP, the wing of the terrorist group that is active in Yemen, is the al Qaeda branch that US officials say poses the greatest threat to the West.

Soldiers loyal to Hadi clashed with the suspected al Qaeda fighters in the city early on Thursday, residents said.

The Houthis, allied to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, took over the Yemeni capital Sanaa six months ago and control much of the country, which also faces a southern secessionist movement, tribal unrest and an AQAP insurgency based in the centre and the east of the country.

Residents also reported air strikes overnight on the coastal town of Shaqra, which is under Houthi control and lies on the coast between Aden and Mukalla.