ADEN/DUBAI: Saudi-led coalition air strikes on a Yemen rebel training camp northwest of the capital on Sunday killed at least 26 Houthi fighters, security sources said.

The head of the training camp in Hajjah province, Amar al-Jarab, was among those killed in the strikes, the sources close to the rebels said. A warehouse where rockets were stocked was also hit, the sources added.

The raids come with the war-torn country plunged deeper into turmoil by Monday’s killing of ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh at the hands of the Houthis after his alliance with the rebels collapsed.

Forces of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government retook the Red Sea town of Khokha from the rebels on Thursday after clashes that killed dozens, local officials and medical sources said.

On Sunday, Katyusha rockets believed to have been fired by the Iran-backed Houthis hit Khokha, killing a six-year-old girl and wounding five other civilians, residents said.

Further east in the town of Hays and north in Tuhayta, rebels clashed with loyalists on Sunday, pro-government forces said. Khokha lies between rebel-held Hodeida and government-controlled Mokha on the Red Sea, and is central to the government expanding its control over the strategic coastline.

The port of Hodeida is the main conduit for UN-supervised deliveries of food and medicine to Yemen, where poverty has been compounded by war and a blockade on ports and airports imposed by the Saudi-led coalition.

The International Committee of the Red Cross on Saturday warned against fighting intensifying along the Red Sea coast near what it called densely populated urban areas.

ICRC regional head of operations Robert Mardini called on all sides to protect civilians.

Saleh buried in Sanaa with handful of relatives present

Yemen’s Houthi group has buried the body of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa, allowing only a handful of relatives to attend, sources from his General People’s Congress (GPC) party said on Sunday.

Saleh, 75, was killed by the Iran-aligned Houthis on Monday, after he had called for a “new page” in ties with a Saudi-led coalition that his supporters together with the Houthis had fought for nearly three years.

A GPC source, who has asked not to be identified, said the Houthis allowed less than 10 people from Saleh’s relatives to attend the night-time burial in the capital Sanaa, but gave no details on the exact location.

GPC Secretary-General Aref al-Zouka, who was killed with Saleh, was buried on Saturday in his native al-Saeed district of Shabwa province in southern Yemen after the Houthis handed over his body to tribal leaders, media and GPC officials said.

Relatives said on Thursday that Saleh’s family had refused conditions demanded by the Houthis for handing over the body. Some said they wanted to bury the body in the courtyard of a mosque he had built near the presidential compound in southern Sanaa.

Saleh ruled Yemen for 33 years before being forced to step down in 2012 in a Gulf-brokered transition plan following months of Arab Spring protests demanding democracy.

Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2017