Yemen troops advance into rebel-held Hodeida

HODEIDA, Yemen: Yemeni pro-government forces backed by Saudi-led coalition warplanes advanced inside rebel-held Hodeida Thursday, leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians bracing for fighting in the streets of the Red Sea port city.

After a week of intense battles with the Iran-backed Huthi insurgents on the outskirts of Hodeida, loyalist troops reached residential neighbourhoods, using bulldozers to remove concrete road blocks installed by the rebels.

Flashing victory signs, troops of the United Arab Emirates-trained Giants Brigade armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades rolled down the city's streets in pickup trucks bearing their brigade logo spray-painted in red, a journalist working for AFP reported.

Three military sources said that government forces and their coalition allies were edging towards the city's vital docks through which nearly 80 percent of Yemen's commercial imports and practically all UN-supervised humanitarian aid pass.

Columns headed for the port advanced two kilometres (more than a mile) along the main road from the interior to the east and three kilometres (nearly two miles) along the coast road from the south, the sources said.

"Either the rebels surrender the city peacefully or we take it by force, but we will take it either way," commander Moammar al-Saidy told AFP. Coalition warplanes bombed rebel positions as the ground forces advanced. At least 47 Huthi fighters were killed, hospital sources in rebel-held areas told AFP.

Medics at hospitals in government-held territory said 11 soldiers were killed. The deaths bring the overall toll from seven days of fighting to 250 combatants killed -- 197 rebels and 53 loyalists.

Aid group Save the Children has confirmed the death of one civilian, a 15-year-old boy who died of shrapnel wounds sustained just outside the city.

The Huthis have controlled Hodeida since 2014 when they overran the capital Sanaa and then swept though much of the rest of the country, triggering Saudi-led military intervention the following year and a devastating war of attrition.

The rebels have since been driven out of virtually all of the south and much of the Red Sea coast. Government forces launched their offensive to retake Hodeida in June backed by significant numbers of Emirati ground troops.

Their advance into the city of some 600,000 people has been slowed by trenches and minefields dug by the rebels around their last major coastal stronghold, an army source said.

Rebel chief Abdulmalik al-Huthi vowed late on Wednesday that his fighters would never surrender to the Saudi-led coalition despite being seriously outnumbered. "The enemy benefits from its numbers, which it has increased even further to pressure the city of Hodeida," he said.

"Does the enemy think that penetrating this or that area, or seizing this or that area, means we will be convinced that we should surrender and hand over control? "This is not happening and will not happen ever."

North Hodeida is still under total rebel control. While some shops had shuttered their windows, a vegetable market was bustling as armed men could be seen patrolling the area. Pedestrians and cars poured into Jizan Road, a main street in the city's north.

Human rights groups have voiced fears that a protracted battle for the city will exact heavy civilian casualties and force a halt to vital food shipments. UN agencies say some 14 million people are at risk of famine in Yemen, which they have described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Aid groups have appealed to both the rebels and the coalition to provide safe passage for fleeing civilians and halt fighting around hospitals.