A Yemeni man receives a food package delivered by volunteers during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan at a slum in Sana'a, Yemen, on June 29, 2015. (EPA/Yahya Arhab)
Sana’a, Asharq Al-Awsat—Houthi rebels on Tuesday released about 1,200 inmates, including Al-Qaeda suspects, from a prison in an area they control in central Yemen following an attack by forces loyal to President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, officials said.
The rebels, who control large parts of Yemen, opened the prison gates as Hadi loyalists, known as the Popular Resistance force, pressed towards the southwestern suburb in Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, where the prison is located.
A local official told Reuters some of the escapees were “suspected of belonging to Al-Qaeda.”
“Groups of Al-Qaeda supporters . . . today [on Tuesday] attacked the central prison in the city of Taiz and more than 1,200 of the dangerous prisoners escaped,” SABA news agency, which the Houthis control, quoted a security official as saying.
The advancing Popular Resistance force immediately took control of the area and hastened to contain the situation, a pro-Hadi source told Asharq Al-Awsat.
He said: “Afterwards our fighters rushed to pursue the escaped prisoners who include criminals and convicts who have been sentenced to death.”
The Houthis entered Taiz in March, triggering an aerial campaign led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the US, targeting the Houthi rebels’ positions across Yemen in a bid to restore President Hadi to power.
The outskirts of the city have been the scene of ongoing clashes between Hadi loyalists, backed by the Saudi-led airstrikes, and an alliance of Houthi militants and forces loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Fighters from the Popular Resistance, backed by coalition airstrikes, have managed to capture new territories in Taiz from Houthis, a pro-Hadi source told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Violent clashes erupted between the two sides in the southwestern suburbs of the city on Tuesday, leaving dozens killed and injured among Houthi ranks.
On the political front, President Hadi held a meeting with UN Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed in Riyadh on Tuesday in which he urged him to remove obstacles standing in the way of implementing UN Security Council Resolution 2216 that stipulates Houthis withdraw from the areas they control in Yemen.
An informed Yemeni source said Hadi’s government-in-exile has urged, through the envoy, the UN’s Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to speed up the process of implementing the resolution and facilitate access of the UN aid ships into the troubled country, particularly those still waiting to dock at the port of Aden.