Saudi-led planes bomb Yemen hours after air war halt

Saudi-led warplanes launched new strikes in Yemen today, hours after Riyadh announced a halt to the four-week air campaign, as rebels seized a key loyalist base in the third city Taez.
The Saudi-led coalition had warned it stood ready to counter against any advance by the rebels and their allies even after it ended Operation Decisive Storm from midnight yesterday.
Ground fighting between the rebels and forces loyal to exiled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi raged on in a string of battleground towns, including the second city of Aden as well as Taez, in a blow to US-led calls for renewed peace talks.

In Taez, the rebels took advantage of the lull in air strikes to overrun the headquarters of the 35th Armoured Brigade, loyal to Hadi, which they had besieged for nearly a week, an army officer said.
The Saudi-led coalition hit back with air strikes against rebel positions inside the captured camp and elsewhere in the city.
The fighting left "dozens dead and wounded", the officer told AFP.

The World Health Organization says at least 944 people have been killed in Yemen since March 19 and there were calls from all sides for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid.
Riyadh said the strikes, which it launched on March 26 as the rebels closed in on Hadi's last refuge in Aden, had succeeded in eliminating the threat posed to Saudi Arabia and its neighbours by the rebels' air and missile capabilities.

But rebel forces remain in control of the capital Sanaa and swathes of the country and Hadi is still in exile in Riyadh, where he fled when the raids began.
The coalition said its operations would now enter a political phase with the focus on the resumption of talks, aid deliveries and "fighting terrorism".
Al-Qaeda's Yemen branch, regarded by Washington as its most dangerous, has taken advantage of the air war and ground fighting between the rebels and Hadi loyalists to consolidate its grip on Hadramawt province in the southeast.