Houthi shelling in Yemen’s Jawf kills 2: Local sources

The Houthi Shia militia and their allies on Saturday shelled positions held by the Yemeni army and forces loyal to President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi in Yemen’s northern Al-Jawf province, according to pro-Hadi sources.

Abdullah al-Ashraf, a spokesman for the pro-Hadi “popular resistance” in-Al Jawf, said Houthi shelling had targeted several parts of the province, killing two military personnel.

According to al-Ashraf, the shelling was the fiercest since a UN-backed ceasefire went into effect on April 11.

In a related development, a Yemeni army commander was quoted by Yemen’s official SABA news agency as saying that within the past 24 hours the Houthis had also shelled a power plant and five villages in the country’s eastern Shabwah province.

Yemen has been racked by chaos since 2014, when the Houthis and their allies overran capital Sanaa and several other parts of the country, forcing Hadi and his Saudi-backed government to temporarily flee to Riyadh.

In March of last year, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive military campaign in Yemen aimed at reversing Houthi gains and restoring Hadi’s embattled government.

According to UN figures, the ongoing conflict has led to the death of some 6,400 Yemenis to date and forced some 2.5 million to flee their homes.

On April 11, UN-brokered peace talks kicked off in Kuwait following the announcement of a ceasefire in Yemen.

The Yemeni government delegation at the talks demands the immediate implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2216, which calls on the Houthis to withdraw from cities occupied earlier and to lay down their arms.