Sanaa (AFP) April 12, 2015- Saudi-led air strikes hit a rebel base in central Yemen Sunday and clashes raged in southern city Aden as France’s top diplomat voiced Western support for the air campaign in Riyadh.
In the third week of strikes mounted by Saudi Arabia and its allies, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that France was “naturally on the side of its regional partners for the restoration of stability in Yemen,” according to his entourage.
“Concerning Yemen, we are here to demonstrate our support, especially political, to the Saudi authorities,” Fabius told reporters as he began a series of meetings with the Saudi leadership including King Salman.
Saudi Arabia, an important ally of France, leads a coalition of nine Arab countries which since March 26 has carried out air strikes against the Huthi Shiite rebels who overran the capital Sanaa in September.
Riyadh feared the rebels would take over the entire country and move it into the orbit of Shiite Iran, Sunni Saudi Arabia’s regional rival.
On Sunday, air strikes continued to target positions of the Huthis and their allies.
A pre-dawn strike hit Camp 22 in Al-Dhahra in the south of Taez province killing 15 rebels or allied troops, a medic at Al-Thawra hospital said.
The base belongs to the elite Republican Guard which remained loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh after he was forced from power in 2012 following a year of nationwide protests against his three-decade rule.
Saleh has allied his followers with the Huthi rebels in their battle against forces loyal to fugitive President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.
The Saudi-led coalition said on Saturday that it had conducted 1,200 air strikes since March 26 and neutralized the air and missile capabilities of the rebels and their allies.
The air campaign, which has been accompanied by a naval blockade, was launched as the rebels closed in on Hadi’s refuge in Aden.