ADEN/RIYADH: Rebel forces on Thursday seized Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s palace in his former refuge of Aden, a senior security official told AFP.
“Dozens of Houthi militia and their allies arrived in armoured troop carriers and entered Al-Maashiq presidential palace,” said the official, who witnessed their advance into the complex. Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia last week as the rebels bore down on Aden.
Unidentified troops landed in Aden after Houthis seized the center of the city. Dozens of unidentified troops landed by sea in Aden in an apparent last-ditch effort by a Saudi-led coalition to shore up a foothold in the Yemeni port city after Houthi rebels seized control of its center today.
The soldiers arrived in a single vessel a few hours after the Houthis and their supporters swept into the heart of Aden despite an eight-day air campaign led by Riyadh to stem their advances.
A Saudi Arabian border guard was killed, and 10 others wounded, when their observation post came under fire from a mountainous area in Yemen, the interior ministry said on Thursday in comments carried by Saudi news agency SPA.
Corporal Salman Ali Yahya al-Maliki, who was killed in the border province of Asir, is the first known Saudi fatality in the week-old military campaign the country has led against Houthi fighters in Yemen.
