Over a dozen killed in rocket attack

SANAA: Yemen´s government in exile said on Friday that it would join UN-mediated peace talks next week, as Iran-backed rebels were accused of killing 20 civilians at a busy market.

The Saudi-led coalition battling the Iran-backed Huthi insurgents meanwhile sent new reinforcements over the border into Yemen in preparation for an offensive to retake the capital Sanaa.

Coalition warplanes struck an arms depot in Sanaa, triggering powerful explosions that killed at least seven civilians and wounded 10, witnesses and medics said.

International rights groups have repeatedly voiced alarm at the heavy civilian toll in the conflict, which has killed more than 4,500 people since March, according to UN estimates.

The coalition sent more military vehicles and troops across the border into Yemen on Friday to try to recapture more territory from the Huthis, who overran the capital a year ago and swept southwards across the impoverished country.

An AFP reporter at the Wadia border post between Saudi Arabia and Yemen saw at least 40 coalition military vehicles cross over into Yemen´s oil-rich Marib province on Friday.

The vehicles were carrying Yemeni troops trained in Saudi Arabia as well as coalition troops whose nationality military officials in the area declined to specify.

Their arrival came as coalition warplanes killed seven rebels in an air raid on Friday in eastern Yemen, where Apache helicopters have also joined the fight against the insurgents.

The strike targeted a military vehicle used by the rebels in the eastern province of Marib, while other air raids struck rebel positions in neighbouring Shabwa province, military sources said.

Hours later, the rebels fired Katyusha rockets at the government headquarters in Marib´s provincial capital, witnesses said.

But several rockets landed on an adjacent market in Marib´s city centre, killing at least 20 civilians and wounding dozens, according to medics and witnesses.

Friday´s violence came hours after UN special envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said that the exiled government and the Huthi rebels had agreed to take part in peace talks that “will convene in the region next week”.
Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-1-339809-Over-a-dozen-killed-in-rocket-attack