Yemen’s president blasts militia as ‘hateful Iranian stooges’ AL-MUKALLA: Up to 50 Houthis died in fierce fighting in Yemen on Sunday as the Iran-backed militia opened new fronts in their months-long offensive to capture Marib city. Arab coalition warplanes targeted Houthi military reinforcements before they reached the battlefields in Marib, helping government troops to push back the assault. After failing to break through defenses west of Marib, the Houthis opened new fronts across the province’s southern borders with Shabwa and Al-Bayda, attacking troops in Al-Abedia, Bayhan, and Ouselan. ad The attacks led the army to send fresh troops and military equipment to Shabwa, Abyan, Marib and Al-Bayda. Local tribes have also dispatched fighters and vowed to push back Houthi incursions into their territories in the four provinces. “In the past 48 hours, 43 Houthi fighters were killed, mostly in coalition airstrikes,” a military source said. The Houthis are Iranian stooges who have made Yemen a hostage to expansionist Iranian policies and a place for transmitting the hateful Iranian experience that the Yemeni people reject. Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi The Houthis initially escalated their efforts to seize Marib in February, hoping to gain control of the strategically vital city and the region’s oil resources. Marib, about 120km east of the Houthi-held capital Sanaa, sits at a crossroads between the southern and northern regions and is key to controlling Yemen’s north. Local officials said thousands had been forced to flee their homes and displacement camps in the province as the Houthis intensified their assaults on towns and villages. Families have taken refuge in the city of Marib amid a severe shortage of shelter, food and water. The city hosts more than 2 million people who have fled fighting and Houthi repression in their home provinces. A Houthi missile strike night killed five people and wounded at least 17 others in Medi town in the northern province of Hajjah. Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi blasted Iran for fueling the war and using the Houthis as tools for executing its “harmful” expansionist ambitions in the region. Speaking to Yemenis at the weekend on the anniversary of their revolution, Hadi urged them to forget their differences and come together to defeat the Houthis, who he described as “purely Iranian stooges.” “They made the homeland a hostage to the expansionist Iranian policies and a place for transmitting the hateful Iranian experience that the Yemeni people reject,” he said.