Jan 6 (Reuters) – Gunfire was heard on Tuesday in the vicinity of the Al-Maashiq presidential palace in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden, witnesses told Reuters on Tuesday.
Security sources said anti-aircraft guns were activated to target unidentified drones in the airspace over the palace.
No further information was immediately available.
Aden, along with areas near the port city, is currently controlled by the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC), which is backed by the United Arab Emirates. The leader of the STC had been residing in the palace but his current whereabouts are unknown.
Tuesday’s developments come amid efforts to end a conflict between the UAE-backed separatists and Yemen’s Saudi-backed internationally recognised government, which erupted last month.
The conflict has triggered a major feud between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, fracturing a coalition originally created to fight the Iran-aligned Houthis, who are still the dominant military force in Yemen.
The Houthis seized the Yemeni capital Sanaa in 2014 and Gulf countries intervened the following year in support of the internationally recognised government, splitting Yemen into rival zones of control.
Aden has been the main seat of power outside Houthi-controlled areas since 2015 but leaders of the internationally recognised government left the city for Saudi Arabia early last month when the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council seized control.
Government forces backed by Saudi airstrikes on Friday and Saturday took back control of the strategically important Hadramout and Mahra provinces in the east of Yemen.
(Writing by Menna Alaa El-Din; editing by Mark Heinrich and Gareth Jones)
Comments