Fighters of the Popular Resistance Committees, supporting forces loyal to  President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, patrol a street in Aden yesterday.

AFP/Aden

Gunmen killed two security officers in separate drive-by shootings in the southern Yemeni city of Aden, where Islamist militants are becoming increasingly active, security officials said yesterday.
In the first incident, gunmen opened fire from a car at Major Meead Ali outside the building where he lives in the port city’s Inmaa neighbourhood, one official said.
Gunmen shot dead Abdelwahed Ahmed of Aden’s criminal investigation unit in a similar attack outside his home in Al Mansura district, another security official said.
Meanwhile, the chief prosecutor of the neighbouring Lahj province, Saeed Abdullah, escaped an attempt to assassinate him in a similar way in Aden, a third security official said.
All the attacks took place late on Saturday, the sources said.
Such assassinations by unidentified gunmen in cars or on motorbikes are common in Yemen, especially in the lawless south and are usually attributed to Al Qaeda, although it rarely claims responsibility for them.
Aden has been rocked by unrest since Shia Houthi rebels and their allies, who have seized the Yemeni capital before expanding further across the country, entered the city in mid-March.
Southern fighters allied with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and supported by Saudi-led coalition forces managed in July to push the rebels out of the port city.
But Islamist militants, including Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group, appeared to have gained ground in the southern city.
On October 6, government temporary headquarters came under attack in a series of bombings that lightly wounded several ministers and killed more than 15 people.  
IS claimed the bombings which also hit military installations used by Saudi-led coalition troops.

UN envoy sees Yemen talks by November 15

Reuters/Manama

The UN special envoy to Yemen said yesterday he expects talks between its warring parties to begin by mid-November, eight months after the start of a messy civil war that has killed thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis.
The conflict pits the Iran-allied Houthi militia and army units loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh against armed groups who support exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi alongside a Saudi-led Arab coalition.
“I expect that before mid-November, God willing, a date will be specified and I expect that the dialogue must begin before mid-November, as a minimum, 15 November,” UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in Bahrain.
All major combatants have publicly agreed to implement UN Security Council Resolution 2216, which calls on Houthi and Saleh forces to withdraw from main cities and surrender arms captured from Yemeni government forces.
However, while Hadi and the coalition have previously demanded that this happen before talks begin, the Houthis and Saleh want talks to address mechanism for Resolution 2216 to be implemented.
Discussions between the United Nations and the Houthis have taken place already in Oman’s capital Muscat.
“I have a team in Riyadh and before that they were in Muscat, exactly to reach agreement on the date and venue and the subjects that will be discussed within the context of UN Security Council Resolution 2216,” Ould Cheikh Ahmed said.
He added that a statement on Friday by a senior Houthi leader that efforts to find a political solution had failed did not appear to represent the group’s official position.
Ould Sheikh Ahmed said he did not believe the coalition intended to take Sanaa by force.