Yemeni PM arrives in Aden from Riyadh

SANAA, Yemen

Khaled Bahah, vice-president and prime minister of Yemen, arrived in Yemen’s coastal city of Aden on Monday from Saudi Arabia, according to a government source.

The source, who preferred anonymity, told Anadolu Agency that Bahah, along with a number of ministers in his government, had arrived in Aden from Riyadh.

"In the coming period, they will assume the task of running the country’s affairs," he added without elaborating.

Bahah and a handful of his ministers left Aden for Riyadh last October, after the palace in which they were staying came under attack by the Shia Houthi militia and its allies.

Border clashes

In a related development, several people were killed on Sunday in clashes that erupted on the Saudi-Yemeni border between Houthi rebels and Saudi forces, according to media reports from both sides.

According to Yemen’s Houthi-linked Al-Maseera television channel, Houthi forces managed to thwart an advance by the Saudi army towards Al-Raboah -- a Saudi border city captured earlier by the Houthis -- "despite the presence of air cover by the Saudi-led coalition".

Al-Maseera went on to report that Houthi snipers had killed eight Saudi troops "in special operations carried out on the outskirts of the city of Al-Jizan" in the kingdom’s southwest.

Houthi fighters, the channel added, had also killed a number of Saudi soldiers near the city of Tuwal in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern Al-Jizan province.

Saudi state television, for its part, reported on Sunday evening that an army officer had been killed near Al-Rabuah "in clashes with Houthi elements".

It went on to assert that 21 Houthi rebels had been killed on Sunday -- and three Houthi vehicles destroyed -- "in an exchange of fire in Jizan’s Al-Harth district".

Anadolu Agency has not been able to independently verify either side’s assertions.