Yemen: Air strikes led by Saudi Arabia targeting Iran-allied Houthi forces intensified

Air strikes led by Saudi Arabia targeting Iran-allied Houthi forces intensified in Yemen on Tuesday, residents said, ending weeks of a relative lull in the war after a major diplomatic row erupted between the kingdom and arch foe Tehran Reuters reported Jan. 5, 2016.
Sustained air strikes targeted military positions linked to Yemen’s ascendant Houthis in the capital Sanaa, the port city of Hodaida and the disputed southwestern city of Taiz.
Heavy shelling resumed on battle fronts which had been largely static during a truce which began on Dec. 15 in tandem with United Nations-backed peace talks.
Local medics in Hajja reported that around 20 Houthi fighters were killed in the clashes.
A military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Muslim allies has been fighting Yemen’s Shi’ite Houthi movement to repel what it sees as creeping influence by the group’s ally, Iran.
The kingdom on Saturday announced the end of the truce, which had reduced fighting but had been repeatedly violated by both sides.
Three senior southern Yemeni officials survived a suicide car bomb attack on their convoy in Aden and a subsequent gun battle that killed three of their guards on Tuesday, a government spokesman and security sources said.
The southern port city is suffering from a security vacuum as loyalists of Yemen’s embattled government, which has its temporary seat in Aden, seek to wrest the capital Sanaa from the Houthis.
“A suicide bomber in a car detonated as the convoy of the governors of Aden and Lahj provinces along with the Aden security director passed through the area of Inma,” Nizar Anwar, a government spokesman said.
The assailants retreated into the desert, he said.