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Houthi rebels seized control of the key Red Sea port city of Hodeida, west of Sanaa, yesterday in a stunning new blitz advance.
The Shi’ite rebels had been besieging the city for days and effectively control the entire province of the same name along with the provinces of Saada and Omran north of the capital.
They set up checkpoints and deployed forces at all entry points to the city, its airport and seaport and assumed authority in several military bases inside Hodeida, which is 125 miles west of the capital.
They also advanced south of Sanaa, taking Damar province and its provincial capital, also called Damar.
Soldiers and police vanished from Damar city streets as the rebels entered and have now been replaced by armed Houthis.
Fighting erupted earlier in the summer, mainly around the Houthis’ northern stronghold of Saada province where they fought Sunni tribesmen allied with Islamist militias and then spread to the capital, which the rebels overran last month.
The Houthis have long been at odds with the central government in Sanaa, enduring six military expeditions against their strongholds in Saada between 2004 and 2010.
They subscribe to the Shi’ite Zaydi sect and take their name from the Houthi family which founded the movement in Saada and claims descent from the Prophet Mohammed.
Further problems for the government loomed when tens of thousands of people demon
Strated in the southern port city of Aden yesterday, calling for secession from the north of the country.
South Yemen, officially known as the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, was an independent nation until it was unified with the north in 1990.
A subsequent independence movement was ruthlessly crushed in 1994 by the army of now-ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Beside the threat to national unity posed by the southern secessionist movement and the rebel Houthis, Yemen is also home to what Washington views as the most dangerous branch of al-Qaida.
President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi tried to resolve political problems on Monday by appointing diplomat and former oil minister Khaled Bahah as prime minister as part of a UN-brokered peace deal.
