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Houthi Attack Repelled in Yemen's Hajjah

Yemeni tribesmen hold positions during fighting against the Houthis in Marib city on June 27, 2016. (Getty Images)
Yemeni tribesmen hold positions during fighting against the Houthis in Marib city on June 27, 2016. (Getty Images)
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Houthi Attack Repelled in Yemen's Hajjah

Yemeni tribesmen hold positions during fighting against the Houthis in Marib city on June 27, 2016. (Getty Images)
Yemeni tribesmen hold positions during fighting against the Houthis in Marib city on June 27, 2016. (Getty Images)

The Yemeni military declared on Thursday that it has repelled an attack by the Iran-backed Houthi militias on the Abs front in the northwestern Hajjah province.

Several Iran-made armed drones were downed during the fighting, it added.

The Saudi-led Arab coalition offered air support during the operation. It carried out 15 raids in the Marib and Hajjah provinces in the past 24 hours, destroying eleven Houthi military vehicles.

On Wednesday, the coalition said it carried out 17 strikes against the Houthis in the same provinces, destroying 14 of their vehicles and leaving dozens of casualties among their ranks.

Yemeni sources said the Houthis in Hajjah were trying to regroup and recapture lost territories in the Abs district. They even forced hundreds of civilians to take up arms.

Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani slammed the militias for forcing civilians to join the fighting and "leading them to their death in suicide missions on various fronts."

"This is the systematic murder and genocide of the people of those regions," he added, saying it was yet another crime that can be added to the Houthis' long list of atrocities against the Yemeni people.

He accused the terrorist Houthis of exploiting the "poverty and ignorance" of some communities to further their agenda and violations in the country, including the looting of salaries and humanitarian aid, driving students out of school and recruiting children to their ranks.

The minister called on the international community to condemn the Houthis, designate them as terrorist and put their leaders on trial for war crimes.

Meanwhile, the military said it was sweeping recently liberated areas in the al-Safra district in Saada for mines planted by the Houthis.

The northern Saada province is the main Houthi stronghold in Yemen.

On Wednesday, the army announced that its forces had liberated new positions in the Safra district.

The Saba news agency reported that the military liberated the positions of Sharqan, Tibab al-Azabi and al-Hadiby in a rapid attack that left several Houthis dead and injured.

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US Pulls Out of Two More Bases in Syria, Worrying Kurdish Forces

SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
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US Pulls Out of Two More Bases in Syria, Worrying Kurdish Forces

SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)

US forces have pulled out of two more bases in northeastern Syria, visiting Reuters reporters found, accelerating a troop drawdown that the commander of US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces said was allowing a resurgence of ISIS.

Reuters reporters who visited the two bases in the past week found them mostly deserted, both guarded by small contingents of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - the Kurdish-led military group that Washington has backed in the fight against ISIS for a decade.

Cameras used on bases occupied by the US-led military coalition had been taken down, and razor wire on the outer perimeters had begun to sag.

A Kurdish politician who lives on one base said there were no longer US troops there. SDF guards at the second base said troops had left recently but declined to say when. The Pentagon declined to comment.

It is the first confirmation on the ground by reporters that the US has withdrawn from Al-Wazir and Tel Baydar bases in Hasaka province. It brings to at least four the number of bases in Syria US troops have left since President Donald Trump took office.

Trump’s administration said this month it will scale down its military presence in Syria to one base from eight in parts of northeastern Syria that the SDF controls. The New York Times reported in April that troops might be reduced from 2,000 to 500 in the drawdown.

The SDF did not respond to questions about the current number of troops and open US bases in northeastern Syria.

But SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, who spoke to Reuters at another US base, Al Shadadi, said the presence of a few hundred troops on one base would be "not enough" to contain the threat of ISIS.

"The threat of ISIS has significantly increased recently. But this is the US military’s plan. We’ve known about it for a long time ... and we’re working with them to make sure there are no gaps and we can maintain pressure on ISIS," he said.

Abdi spoke to Reuters on Friday, hours after Israel launched its air war on Iran. He declined to comment on how the new Israel-Iran war would affect Syria, saying simply that he hoped it would not spill over there and that he felt safe on a US base.

Hours after the interview, three Iranian-made missiles targeted the Al Shadadi base and were shot down by US defense systems, two SDF security sources said.

ISIS ACTIVE IN SYRIAN CITIES

ISIS ruled vast swathes of Iraq and Syria from 2014 to 2017 during Syria’s civil war, imposing a vision of religious rule under which it beheaded locals in city squares, sex-trafficked members of the Yazidi minority and executed foreign journalists and aid workers.

The group, from its strongholds in Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, also launched deadly attacks in European and Middle Eastern countries.

A US-led military Coalition of more than 80 countries waged a yearslong campaign to defeat the group and end its territorial control, supporting Iraqi forces and the SDF.

But ISIS has been reinvigorated since the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December at the hands of separate opposition factions.

Abdi said ISIS cells had become active in several Syrian cities, including Damascus, and that a group of foreign extremists who once battled the Syrian regime had joined its ranks. He did not elaborate.

He said ISIS had seized weapons and ammunition from Syrian regime depots in the chaos after Assad's fall.

Several Kurdish officials told Reuters that ISIS had already begun moving more openly around US bases which had recently been shuttered, including near the cities of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, once strongholds for the extremist group.

In areas the SDF controls east of the Euphrates River, ISIS has waged a series of attacks and killed at least 10 SDF fighters and security forces, Abdi said. Attacks included a roadside bomb targeting a convoy of oil tankers on a road near the US base where he gave the interview.