Houthis seize Yemeni base

CAIRO: The Yemeni government suspended direct peace talks to end the country’s civil war on Sunday after the Houthi movement and its armed allies seized a military base north of the capital Sanaa, two members of the official delegation to the talks said.

The Houthi assault killed several of the soldiers defending the Umaliqa base.

Unlike most of Yemen’s soldiers, those at Umaliqa had refused to take sides in the war between the Iran-allied Houthis and the Saudi-backed government.

The Houthis had tolerated this neutrality until they launched a surprise push into the facility in Amran province and seized its large cache of weapons at dawn, local officials said.

"We have suspended the sessions indefinitely to protest these military actions and continued violations of the truce," one member of the government delegation to the Yemen peace talks in Kuwait said.