Clashes renewed between Houthi militias and Saleh’s forces

Clashes renewed between Houthi militias and forces of Yemen’s former President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a. According to local sources, the clashes led to a large number of deaths and injuries from the two sides. Arab Coalition, on its hand, launched a number of air raids against strongholds of Houthi militias and Saleh’s forces in the Yemeni province of Jawf.

On his hand, An Arab coalition airstrike that hit an educational complex in the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah did not target civilians, the Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JIAT) has confirmed. The coalition airstrike took place on Aug. 27, but was only approved once the Saudi-led coalition forces had ensured there was no civilian presence on the site, JIAT spokesman Mansour Al-Mansour said.

“The particular site called the Shaima education complex that was surgically hit in late August had no civilian presence,” Al-Mansour explained to reporters at a press conference on Tuesday. “The site itself was being used as a military facility by armed Houthi militias after capturing the space,” he added.

Political sources in Yemen said that the General People’s Congress has withdrawn from a committee entrusted with the preparation for the rebels’ coup anniversary, which falls on September 21, highlighting a widening dispute between the Houthis and the party of ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The sources said that Saleh’s party withdrew from the committee in the wake of decisions made by the president of the so-called “political council”, Saleh al-Samad, against members of the General People’s Congress. The sources added that Samad has taken a series of measures, including the removal of pro-Saleh officials from senior posts in government institutions.

Rebels are preparing to celebrate the coup anniversary, amid the failure of a political solution and their continuous rejection of all initiatives presented by the UN envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the last of which was the administration of the port of Hodeidah by a neutral party to collect revenues and pay salaries that had been suspended for around ten months.

“The anniversary of the occupation of Sana’a on September 21, 2014 is a nightmare for the Yemeni people,” said Ghamdan al-Sharif, Yemeni prime minister’s press secretary, in remarks to Asharq al-Awsat. “Our people are living in their suffering to this day,” he added, stressing that militias wanted to “overthrow the Republic and declare the Faqih mandate in Sanaa and Yemen in general.”

“The Yemeni people have stood against these plans with the support of our Arab brothers in the Decisive Storm, which has aborted this Iranian project and maintained the legitimacy and the Republic,” Sharif stated.

On humanitarian side, Yemen's cholera outbreak has infected 612,703 people and killed 2,048 since it began in April, and some districts are still reporting sharp rises in new cases, data from the World Health Organization and Yemen's health ministry showed on Tuesday.

The overall spread of the epidemic has slowed in the past two months, with the daily number of new suspected cases cut to around 3,000 in recent days. However the epidemic, the most explosive on record in terms of its rapid spread, has continually confounded expectations. Soon after it began, WHO saw a worst-case scenario of 300,000 cases within six months.

But by the end of June, WHO was hoping 218,000 cases might be the halfway mark. In late July it said the spread had peaked after infecting 400,000. Epidemics normally decline as quickly as they arise, so the peak of the disease - which is spread by contaminated food and water - should be roughly half the eventual total caseload.

But the decline in the epidemic has been bumpy, and the number of new cases rose in two of the past four weeks.WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said some of the most affected areas, such as Sanaa City and the governorates of Hajjah and Amran, had seen falls in the numbers of new cases.

But there had been a "sudden and significant increase" in the number of suspected cases reported from 12 districts, in the governorates of Hodeidah, Al Jawf, Al Mahwit, Ibb, Dhamar, Al Bayda and Aden.

Also, Yemen’s Minister of Information Moammer Al Aryani praised the decision taken by Saudi government for giving the Yemeni visitors the right to stay in the Saudi territories. He stressed that such a position is considered a new evidence over Saudi honest intention to support the Yemeni people during the current critical period.