Houthis announce ‘national salvation’ govt in Yemen

By Ali Abo Rezeg

SANAA, Yemen

The Shia Houthi militia and allied forces loyal to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh late Monday announced the formation of a “national salvation” government in Yemen, according to the Houthi-run SABA news agency.

The same agency mentioned that the government would be headed by Abdul Aziz Bin Habtoor, the former governor of Aden.

The government will be made up of 35 ministers, including seven state ministers and three deputy premiers, the agency added.

Yemen has been racked by chaos since late 2014, when the Houthis and pro-Salah forces overran the capital Sanaa and other parts of the country, forcing President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and his Saudi-backed government to temporarily flee to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

In March of 2015, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive air campaign in Yemen aimed at restoring Hadi’s embattled government.

Two earlier rounds of UN-backed peace talks failed to resolve the two-year-old conflict, in which thousands of Yemenis have been killed and an estimated 2.5 million forced to flee their homes.