President of Yemen Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi
Yemen’s embattled president fled his palace in Aden for an undisclosed location yesterday as Shiite rebels offered cash bounty for his capture and arrested his defense minister.
President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi left just hours after the rebels’ own television station said they seized an air base where U.S. troops and Europeans advised the country in its fight against al-Qaida militants. That air base is only 60 kilometers away from Aden, the port city where Hadi had established a temporary capital.
Witnesses said they saw a convoy of presidential vehicles yesterday leaving Hadi’s palace, located at the top of a hill in Aden overlooking the Arabian Sea.
Presidential officials said Hadi was in an operations room overseeing his forces’ response. They declined to say where that facility was located. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to brief journalists.
The advance of the Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, 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.
Yemen’s state television broadcaster, controlled by Houthis, made an offer of some $100,000 for Hadi’s capture. Officials meanwhile said that the country’s Defense Minister Maj.-Gen. Mahmoud al-Subaihi and his top aide were arrested in the southern city of Lahj, where fighting with Houthi forces was ongoing, before they were transferred to Sana’a.
Already, military officials said militias and military units loyal to Hadi had “fragmented,” speeding the rebel advance. They said the rebels were fighting Hadi’s allied forces on five different fronts yesterday.
Mohammed Abdel-Salam, a spokesman for the Houthis, said that their forces were not aiming to “occupy” the south.
“They will be in Aden in few hours,” Abdel-Salam told the Houthis’ satellite Al-Masirah news channel.
Early yesterday, Al-Masirah reported that the Houthis and allied fighters had “secured” the al-Annad air base, the country’s largest. It claimed the base had been looted by both al-Qaida fighters and troops loyal to Hadi. Ahmed Al-Haj, Sana’a AP
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