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US private contractors arrested in rebel Sanaa

TWO US private contractors have been arrested in the rebel-controlled capital of Yemen, UN officials said on Monday.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric would not confirm the contractors’ nationality, but said they had arrived on a UN aircraft from Djibouti on October 20 and had been detained by “the authorities at the airport in Sanaa.”

He said the two were “not UN contractors” but worked for the company that manages the UN officies in Sanaa, which are housed in the US embassy.

Unnamed officials later said that the two detained contractors were US citizens.

US State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau refused to comment on the reports.

Sanaa is controlled by rebels of the Houthi movement, known in Yemen as Ansar Allah, which is fighting a Saudi-led military coalition that invaded the country in support of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s embattled regime.

Ansar Allah reportedly destroyed three armoured vehicles yesterday during an incursion into the southern Saudi province of Asir.

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