Yemen PM, president in Saudi to discuss differences: official

Yemen’s premier was in Riyadh on Monday to meet President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi and the Saudi-led coalition backing their administration as reports emerged of differences between the two leaders.

“Members of the family or entourage of President Hadi are interfering in the government’s affairs,” said a Yemeni official, requesting anonymity.

Prime Minister Khaled Bahah, who is also vice president, had returned with several members of his government to Yemen’s “temporary capital” in second city Aden on September 16, after six months’ exile in Saudi Arabia.

The government official did not specify how long Bahah will remain in the kingdom.

On October 6, Bahah escaped unharmed as his temporary headquarters came under attack in a series of bombings that lightly wounded several ministers and killed more than 15 people.

The Islamic State jihadist group claimed the car bombings which also hit military installations used by Saudi-led coalition troops.

The coalition in March began air strikes against Shiite Huthi rebels, and later sent in ground troops to back pro-Hadi forces.

Hadi spent a few days in Aden last month before returning to Riyadh.

The rebels seized the Yemeni capital Sanaa in September 2014, forcing Hadi and his government to flee Aden and then Riyadh.

Bahah will hold a “lengthy meeting” with Hadi, as well as “consultations with the Arab coalition on ways to secure Aden and other southern provinces”, the official told AFP.

Bolstered by heavy weaponry and Gulf troops as well as Yemeni fighters trained in Saudi Arabia, the anti-rebel fighters have retaken Aden as well as four other southern provinces.

But the rebels still hold the capital.

The pro-government fighters are known as Popular Resistance Committees, and Hadi in August issued a declaration to integrate those militiamen into the army.

However, “the government does not have the financial means to implement its policies,” the Yemeni official said, without elaborating.

The United Nations estimates that around 5,000 people, many of them civilians, have been killed in the war in impoverished Yemen over the past seven months.