39 killed as Saudi-led coalition pounds Yemen rebel camps

SANAA: Arab coalition warplanes bombed rebel camps in Yemen on Friday in a second straight day of strikes led by Saudi Arabia, which accused Iran of “aggression” across the region.
A months-long rebellion by fighters has escalated into a regional conflict that threatens to tear apart the impoverished state at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.
Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia has vowed to do “whatever it takes” to prevent the fall of its ally President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, accusing Iran of backing the Houthi rebels’ power grab.
At least 39 civilians have been killed so far in the Saudi-led Operation Decisive Storm against the Houthis, officials at the rebel-controlled health ministry in the capital said.
Twelve of the victims died when surrounding residential areas were hit in a raid against a military base north of the capital, the officials told AFP. Three dawn strikes on Friday hit the presidential compound in south Sanaa which the rebels seized last month, witnesses said.
Warplanes also bombed a Houthi-controlled army brigade in Amran province, north of the capital, and arms depots in the northern rebel stronghold of Saada, residents said.
Hadi, backed by the West and Gulf Arab states, arrived in Riyadh on Thursday with officials saying he was on his way to Egypt to take part in a two-day Arab League summit at the weekend. It was the first confirmation of his whereabouts since the rebels began advancing this week on the main southern city of Aden, where the president had taken refuge since fleeing Sanaa last month.
As explosions rocked Sanaa, those families who have not already fled huddled in fear in their homes. “Whenever a plane flies over our home and is met by anti-aircraft gunfire, my three children run to a corner and start screaming and crying,” said Mohammed al-Jabahi, 32.
“We spent a night of non-stop terror and hysteria. “An anti-aircraft missile wounded eight people, one of them seriously, when it exploded in a market in Sanaa on Friday, a day after it was fired by Huthi fighters, a security official said. The Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television said the kingdom had deployed 100 fighter jets to the operation, while the United Arab Emirates had committed 30, Kuwait 15 each and Qatar 10. Bahrain said it had committed 12 fighters. Saudi Arabia has reportedly also mobilised 150,000 troops near the border.
United Arab Emirates warplanes “intensively” participated in air strikes against the rebels and their allies in Yemen on Friday, the Saudi-led coalition said.
All members of the Arab coalition contributed to the operation but “Emirati air forces participated intensively,” spokesman General Ahmed Assiri told reporters in Riyadh.
He said Yemen´s air space was completely under coalition control, and that aircraft seized by the Huthis had been destroyed.
Coalition warplanes on Friday raided Al-Anad airbase, seized by the Huthis earlier this week, north of the key southern city of Aden, Assiri said. The strikes were aimed at preventing the Huthis using the base, he said, vowing to “do what is necessary to protect the legitimacy of the government” in Aden.
Meanwhile, at least 21 Yemeni rebels were killed on Friday when residents in a tribal southern region opened fire at their vehicles, a local official and witnesses told AFP.
The Huthi rebels, who are also facing Saudi-led air strikes, were travelling in three vehicles from Lahj province towards Aden, the southern stronghold of embattled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, when they were ambushed.
The attack took place just 15-km north of Aden, where tensions were high on Friday as the rebels clashed with the “popular committees” — an anti-Huthi militia controlling parts of the city, security officials and residents said. At least eight people were killed in clashes around Aden airport, where the militiamen were deployed on the runway, security and medical sources said.