Aden - Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement
said it launched missile and drone attacks on Thursday on a
military parade in Aden, the seat of the Saudi-backed
government, that killed more than 30 people according to medical
and security sources.
A Reuters witness saw nine bodies on the ground after an
explosion hit a military camp belonging to the Yemeni Security
Belt forces backed by the United Arab Emirates, which is a
member of the Saudi-led military coalition battling the Houthis.
The attack killed at least 32 people, a medical and a
security source told Reuters. Medecins Sans Frontieres tweeted
that tens of wounded were hospitalised.
Soldiers screamed and ran to lift the wounded and place them
on trucks. Red berets lay on the ground in pools of blood.
The Houthi's official channel Al Masirah TV said the group
had launched a medium-range ballistic missile and an armed drone
at the parade, which it described as being staged in preparation
for a military move against provinces held by the movement.
A pro-government military source and security sources said
a commander, Brigadier General Muneer al-Yafee, a leading figure
of the southern separatists, was among those killed.
"The blast occurred behind the stand where the ceremony was
taking place at Al Jalaa military camp in Buraiqa district in
Aden," the Reuters witness said. "A group of soldiers were
crying over a body believed to be of the commander."
Yafee had just stepped off the stage to greet a guest when
the explosion took place. Flags of the former South Yemen and
those of leading coalition members were fluttering as the
military band was waiting for its cue to start playing.
CEASEFIRE
The Western-backed Sunni Muslim coalition led by Saudi
Arabia and the UAE intervened in Yemen in 2015 to try to restore
the internationally recognised government ousted from power in
the capital Sanaa by the Houthis in late 2014.
The government of Abdu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi controls the
southern port city of Aden. The Houthi movement, which says its
revolution is against corruption, holds Sanaa and most of the
biggest urban centres in the Arabian Peninsula nation.
The parade "was being used to prepare for an advance on Taiz
and Dalea," Masirah cited a Houthi military spokesman as saying.
There was no immediate comment from the Yemeni government or
the coalition.
Last month the UAE said it was scaling down its presence in
Yemen, pulling some troops from areas including Aden and the
western coast deployed for operations against the Houthis in the
main port city of Hodeidah, where a U.N.-brokered ceasefire has
been in place since last December.
An Emirati official said the UAE would not leave a vacuum in
Yemen as it had trained 90,000 Yemeni forces, drawn from among
southern separatists, including Security Belt forces, and
coastal plains fighters.
The Houthis have stepped up cross-border missile and drone
attacks on Saudi cities and the coalition has responded with air
strikes on Houthi military sites, mostly around Sanaa.
The escalating violence could complicate U.N.-led efforts to
implement a troop withdrawal in Hodeidah, the main entry point
for Yemen's commercial and aid imports, to pave the way for
political talks to end the war amid mistrust among all parties
and competing agendas of Yemen's fractious groups.
The more than four-year conflict, widely seen in the region
as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, has killed tens of
thousands and pushed Yemenis to the brink of famine.
In a separate attack in another district of Aden on
Thursday, an explosives-laden car blew up at a police station
killing three soldiers, a security source said.
It was not clear if the incidents were related. Previous car
attacks in Yemen have been carried out by Islamist militant
groups like al Qaeda.