AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s army on Wednesday announced it had partially broken a six-year siege of the southern city of Taiz by the Iran-backed Houthis.

Spokesman Col. Abdul Basit Al-Baher told Arab News that troops had seized control of several mountain locations on the western edges of the city and reopened a road to western areas on the Red Sea.

For the first time in years, soldiers from the Taiz axis met other government troops from the Giants Brigades (military unit fighting for the government) in a liberated area in Al-Wazyia after breaking the last Houthi line of defense that had long-separated them.

“This is an important development since it not only breaks the siege but unifies the fronts against our common enemy,” Al-Baher said, adding that troops were currently consolidating gains in Al-Wazyia as other forces pushed toward Al-Bareh.

If the advances continued at the same speed, government troops would be able to open another strategic road linking the city with Hodeidah and other Red Sea coastal areas, Al-Baher said.

Since early last week, Yemeni troops in Taiz have broken months of military stalemate in the city by launching a new offensive to push back the Houthis from the city’s fringes and break the rebels’ siege.

The army took over control of Jabal Habashy district and several strategic locations on the eastern and western edges of Taiz after killing and wounding dozens of Houthis.

State TV media showed images of soldiers retrieving tanks, armored personnel carriers, and rocket launchers abandoned by the defeated Houthis.

Al-Baher said a group of Houthi fighters, along with their leader, surrendered to the army as many others fled the battlefields.

Yemeni army commanders attributed Houthi setbacks in Taiz to long attrition by army troops and the rebels’ mobilization of their highly trained military units in the central province of Marib.

The official news agency said Yemen’s President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, during a telephone conversation with Taiz Gov. Nabil Shamsan, ordered his troops in Taiz to press ahead with their military offensive until the Houthi siege had been ended.

After failing to seize control of the city’s downtown during early military expansion across Yemen in 2015, the Houthis surrounded the densely populated city, blocking vital food and medical supply lines. The militia group has repeatedly shelled residential areas in Taiz, killing and wounding hundreds of civilians over the last six years.

Yemen’s Defense Ministry said that army troops and allied tribesmen scored limited military gains on different fronts in the province of Marib.

The army seized control of a mountain in Al-Kasara, west of Marib, after killing, wounding, and capturing dozens of Houthis.

In other contested areas in Marib such as Murad, Serwah, and Helan, government troops took defensive positions, focusing on pushing back Houthis as warplanes from the Arab coalition targeted Houthi military reinforcements and locations.

Hadi called Yemini defense minister, Mohammed Al-Maqdashi, to congratulate government troops on their gains and repeated his order to the army to foil “Iran’s scheme and its tools” in Yemen.

NEW YORK: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday welcomed the endorsement by Libya’s House of Representatives of the interim Government of National Unity as “an important step towards restoring unity, stability, security and prosperity” in the country.

He commended members of the House and the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum for their work in advancing the political process in Libya, and also praised the country’s 5+5 Joint Military Commission and local authorities in Sirte for their efforts in securing the parliament’s approval.

Guterres encouraged the new unity government to cooperate with the House of Representatives “to address the urgent needs of the Libyan people without delay, advance preparations for national elections on Dec. 24, 2021, and continue to work toward the full implementation of the ceasefire agreement of Oct. 23, 2020.”

He also reiterated the support of the UN for the Libyan people in all their efforts to improve the peace and stability of their nation.

GAZA: Yehya Al-Sinwar has been re-elected to head Hamas in the Gaza Strip for a second term, officials said on Wednesday, reflecting his control over both political and military wings of the group that rules the Palestinian enclave.

Sinwar, Hamas leader in Gaza since 2017, was freed in a 2011 prisoner swap with Israel after spending more than 20 years behind bars.

While he supports Hamas’ opposition to coexistence with Israel, Sinwar has maintained a relatively stable standoff across the Gaza border.

He has also sought improved ties with Egypt, which maintains restrictions along its frontier with Gaza, a small Mediterranean coastal territory.

“Sinwar’s victory shows the man maintains a strong grip on things inside the movement, especially within its vital components such as the military wing,” said Gaza political analyst Adnan Abu Amer. “The win will enable Sinwar to pursue his policies, whether inside Gaza or with regional countries and the handling of the conflict with Israel.”

Sinwar’s main challenger in the election, which is only open to Hamas members including those in Israeli prisons, was Nizar Awadallah, a long-time official and co-negotiator of the 2011 swap deal.

AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s government and human rights activists have called for the formation of an international inquiry to examine the death of dozens of African migrants inside a detention camp in Houthi-controlled Sanaa on Sunday.

The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of recruiting detained migrants to fight in the civil war. The migrants were said to have burned to death in a fire after  protesting against mistreatment and poor conditions inside a detention facility.

“We strongly condemn the horrific crime committed in migrant detentions run by the terrorist Houthi militia in the seized capital, Sanaa, which led to the death and injury of hundreds of them, who were buried in a mass grave — a Houthi attempts to cover up the crime,” Yemen’s Information Minister Muammer Al-Aryani said.

He added: “We call for a transparent and independent international investigation to reveal details of the crime and hold the perpetrators to account, pressure Houthis to stop recruiting and exploiting refugees in combat, release all detainees in respect of Yemen’s obligations and ensure freedom of movement or voluntary return.”

The fire on Sunday occurred in a detention center in Sanaa, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

“The total number of migrants who died in the fire at the Immigration, Passports and Naturalization Authority Immigration Holding Facility remains unconfirmed, as official records have yet to be released. More than 170 people have been treated for injuries, with many in critical condition,” the IOM said in a statement seen by Arab News.

Local Yemeni media reports and government officials said that “several hundreds” were killed or wounded in the blaze and that Houthi rebels had suppressed information about the incident in order to avoid an international backlash.

Majed Fadhail, deputy minister of human rights, told Arab News that “up to 500 migrants” were killed or injured in the fire. Quoting local medical sources, the Yemeni news agency Yemen Press Network (Yazaan) reported that the number of deaths numbered 50, and that about 130 migrants, including dozens of critical cases, were injured.

The UN migration agency said that the cause of the fire was unclear. But an anonymous local source told Arab News that hundreds of migrants had staged a riot inside the overcrowded detention center to protest against mistreatment, long detention periods and poor conditions.

Migrants blocked doors with blankets and mattresses to prevent detention guards from entering rooms to suppress the riot,” the source said, adding that a guard threw an incendiary device inside the detention that ignited the blaze.

On Tuesday, the IOM warned that tightened security measures by Houthis had obstructed their teams from reaching the injured migrants, and demanded the rebels to allow medical access and release the remaining migrants.

“We are facing challenges accessing the injured due to an increased security presence in the hospitals. Humanitarian and health workers must be given access to support the treatment of those affected by the fire and others who have been receiving long-term care from IOM and partners,” said Carmela Godeau, IOM regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Yemen’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Awadh bin Mubarak sent his condolences to the Ethiopian government over the death of Ethiopian citizens in the fire, and vowed to provide them with medical care and hold the perpetrators accountable.

“We affirm we’ll make every effort with the relevant international organizations to reach the survivors, provide them with the necessary care, uncover the circumstances of this traumatic incident — for which Houthis are responsible — and hold those in charge accountable,” he said on Twitter.

ANKARA: Mehmet Hakan Atilla, CEO of Turkey’s Istanbul Stock Exchange (Borsa Istanbul), resigned from his post on Monday, triggering doubts about the motivations behind this abrupt move at the one of key economic managerial posts of the country. 

Atilla was appointed to his post in October 2019 in a controversial decision just after being sentenced to 32 months in prison in the US for helping Iran circumvent sanctions while he was deputy executive at Turkey’s state-run Halkbank — a case Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan considered a politically motivated assault against the Turkish government.  

Atilla served a 28-month jail term in the US and was released in 2019, when he was appointed as head of the stock exchange by Erdogan’s son-in-law and former Finance Minister Berat Albayrak.  

For some, the resignation may be connected to the impending Halkbank trial on May 3 in New York as a gesture to fix US-Turkey relations in the upcoming months and attract foreign investors amid rising speculations that Albayrak may return to an economic management post in the government. 

During the upcoming New York trial, Halkbank faces a fine of up to $20 billion with charges of money laundering, evasion of sanctions and fraud as the bank is accused of helping funnel over $20 billion for Iran in violation of US sanctions. 

However, for Wolfango Piccoli, co-president of Teneo Intelligence in London, Atilla’s resignation will make no difference to the trial of Halkbank and US-Turkey relations. 

“It is a desperate move by Ankara, which highlights once again the inability of Turkish policymakers to understand how these kinds of matters are managed in the US,” he told Arab News. 

According to Piccoli, looking ahead, there are two key matters for investors: the size of the fine that will be imposed if Halkbank is found guilty, as it is generally assumed, and the reaction of the Turkish authorities once the ruling and the fine are announced.

“Meanwhile, they will monitor the court proceedings to see whether the whole trial becomes politically embarrassing for senior Turkish politicians — a development that could have an adverse impact on the already uneasy Turkey-US bilateral ties,” he said. 

As per usual politics in Turkey, things came in pairs with Atilla’s resignation being followed by a bombshell presidential decision dismissing Zafer Sonmez as CEO of the Turkey Wealth Fund, which owns the Istanbul Stock Exchange. Like Atilla, Sonmez was also appointed by Albayrak. 

“I think some will link the departure of Atilla and Sonmez as clearing the decks of former Albayrak appointees. But Sonmez was more of a technocratic appointment, and I think he had done a decent job in picking the Turkish Wealth Fund from the floor after it went nowhere for the first couple of years of its existence,” Timothy Ash, a senior emerging-market strategist at London-based BlueBay Asset Management, told Arab News. 

“He was more a sovereign wealth guru rather than an Albayrak loyalist, so I don’t see why Finance Minister Lutfi Elvan and Central Bank Governor Naci Agbal would have wanted to oust him. Also, it’s notable that his replacement is a fellow board member and Albayrak nominee. So, it raises the possibility that Sonmez resigned for another reason,” he added. 

Agbal was known for his critical stance against the economic policies that were implemented by Albayrak, opting rather for more orthodox policy-making choices like fighting inflation and increasing the policy rate. 

According to Ash, the resignation of Atilla may be related to the beginning of the Halkbank trial. “And the Turkish authorities don’t want any fallout from that to damage the Istanbul Stock Exchange,” he said. 

But experts also emphasize long-standing criticisms about the nominations for the country’s top management position in line with political favoritism. 

For Piccoli, it remains to be seen whether it is a genuine shakeup at the top of these institutions or the usual giving away of jobs to friends and family members. 

“The start is not that promising, as the newly appointed head of the Turkey Wealth Fund is a classmate of President Erdogan’s son, Bilal,” he said. “As has been the case for a long time, meritocracy plays no role in key appointments made by the government.” 

Turkey’s wealth fund is considering an initial public offering of the Istanbul Stock Exchange by next year.