Yemen’s embattled president flees his palace in the southern port city of Aden for an undisclosed location on Wednesday as Shiite rebels offer a bounty for his capture and arrest his defense minister. Hours later, the rebels launch airstrikes targeting presidential forces guarding the palace.
President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi leaves just hours after the rebels’ own television station said they seized an air base where US troops and Europeans advised the country in its fight against al-Qaeda militants. That air base is only 60 kilometers (35 miles) away from Aden, where Hadi had established a temporary capital.
Members of a militia group loyal to Yemen’s President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, known as the Popular Committees, chew qat as they sit next to their tank, guarding a major intersection in Aden, Yemen, March 21, 2015 (AP Photo/Hamza Hendawi, File)
The advance of the Shiite rebels, empowered by the backing of the ousted Yemeni autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh and his loyalists, threatens to plunge the Arab world’s poorest country into a civil war that could draw in its Gulf neighbors. Already, Hadi has asked the United Nations to authorize a foreign military intervention in the country.
The takeover of Aden, the country’s economic hub, would mark the collapse of what is left of Hadi’s grip on power. It would also open a new chapter in the Houthi-Saleh alliance and possibly pave the way for more infighting.
— AP
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