Pro-govt forces take Houthi sites east of Yemen's Sanaa

By Mohamed al-Samei

SANAA (AA) – Pro-government forces on Monday recaptured two military sites in Sanaa’s eastern Nahm directorate from Shia Houthi militiamen and their allies, according to assertions by the Yemeni army.

"Our forces advanced on Nahm where they liberated the village of Sarhan and the Mount Qarn Wadaa region," the army said in a statement posted on its official Facebook page.

"The Saudi-led coalition also conducted two airstrikes on Houthi targets, destroying three Houthi vehicles," the statement read without providing a death toll.

"A second airstrike by coalition aircraft destroyed several more vehicles and Houthi equipment," it added without elaborating.

The Houthi leadership and allied forces of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh have yet to issue a comment on the army’s claims.

Yemen has been wracked by chaos since late 2014, when the Houthis and their allies overran capital Sanaa and other parts of the country.

The conflict escalated in mid-2015 when Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a major air campaign aimed at reversing Houthi military gains and shoring up Yemen’s embattled Saudi-backed government.

Two rounds of UN-backed peace talks have failed to resolve the conflict, in which thousands of Yemenis are believed to have been killed and an estimated 2.5 million forced to flee their homes.