#Yemen clashes kill dozens as aid delayed

Houthi militants ride a patrol truck

Fierce clashes raged Monday between rebels and loyalist fighters in southern Yemen, leaving nearly 100 dead in 24 hours, as the Red Cross faced delays to urgently needed aid deliveries.

Relief workers have warned of a dire situation in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state, where a Saudi-led coalition is waging an air war on Iran-backed Houthi Shia rebels.

At least 53 people have been killed in 24 hours of fighting between rebels and fighters loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi in the main southern city Aden, medical and army sources said on Monday.

Seventeen civilians were said to be among the dead.

Witnesses said that clashes continued on Monday as rebels tried to seize a port in the city, which sits on an extinct volcano jutting out into the sea.

In the town of Daleh, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) north of Aden, at least 19 Houthi rebels and 15 pro-Hadi militiamen were killed in fighting overnight, local officials said.

Seven more people were killed in clashes in the southern province of Abyan, where Hadi loyalists have besieged the base of a rebel army brigade loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is accused of backing the Houthis.

Hadi, who is backed by the United Nations as Yemen's legitimate leader, took refuge in Aden in February after the Houthis, who hail from the mountainous north, seized power in the capital Sanaa.

Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia last month as rebels advanced on his southern stronghold, prompting the military campaign by the Saudi-led coalition, now in its 12th day.

Yemen, strategically located near key shipping routes and bordering oil-rich Saudi Arabia, is sinking deeper into a multi-sided civil conflict.

The fighting has drawn in an array of armed groups including the Houthis, pro-Hadi militia, army units loyal to Saleh, southern separatists, Sunni tribes and Al-Qaeda militants.

The Red Cross has appealed for an immediate truce to facilitate aid deliveries and allow people to seek water, food and medical assistance.

It has been trying to fly emergency supplies into Sanaa but the plane is still stuck on the tarmac.

"We have a cargo plane with medical supplies which is ready to go," Sitara Jabeen, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva, told .

"We have the permission for this plane but we have logistical problems for the landing. There are less and less planes landing in Yemen. We are trying to solve the logistic problems," she added.

The Red Cross is also trying to deploy a team of surgeons to Aden, but says it is still awaiting authorisations from all sides in the fighting.

It has called for all land, air and sea routes to be immediately opened to allow the delivery of 48 tonnes of medical supplies and surgical kits the organisation has ready to treat the 2,000 to 3,000 people who have been wounded in the fighting.

An AFP photographer at Sanaa airport reported that three Indian aircraft and one Russian plane landed in the capital on Monday to evacuate their citizens.

Russia presented a draft resolution to the UN Security Council on Saturday calling for a humanitarian pause in the Saudi-led air strikes.

Riyadh has assembled a coalition of five Gulf monarchies, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Sudan to wage air raids on the Houthis.

Pakistan said on Monday that it had been asked by Saudi Arabia to contribute aircraft, ships and ground troops to Operation Decisive Storm.

Despite close ties with Riyadh, Pakistan has so far held back from joining the offensive, saying it does not want to get involved in any conflict that would inflame sectarian tensions.

Shia Iran has strongly criticised the intervention in Yemen by the coalition of largely Sunni Muslim nations, accusing Saudi Arabia of sowing instability with its air campaign.

Tehran has angrily rejected accusations of arming the Houthis.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is due to visit Islamabad on Wednesday to discuss the situation, Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said during a special parliamentary debate.

"There should be no ambiguity that if the security of Saudi territory is at stake Pakistan will stand by for support," he told lawmakers.

Official : Arab states see a month of Yemen strikes, maybe longer

People watch a vehicle which belonged to Shi'ite Muslim rebels burn during clashes in Aden March 26, 2015

An Arab alliance attacking Shi'ite Muslim Houthi forces in Yemen initially plans a month-long campaign, but the operation could last five or six months, a Gulf diplomatic official said on Saturday.

The official, from a country that belongs to the alliance, said Shi'ite Iran, the Houthis' main foreign ally, was likely to retaliate indirectly, by encouraging pro-Iranian Shi'ite activists to carry out armed attacks in Bahrain, Lebanon and eastern Saudi Arabia.

Iran, in a tug-of-war with Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia for influence across the Middle East, has denied supporting the Houthis militarily, and has criticised the Gulf Arabs for their military action.

Since the Saudi-led coalition launched air strikes against them early on Thursday, the Houthis, seeking to overthrow the Western- and Saudi-allied President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, have continued to make gains.

But the official, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the attacks would go on until Yemen was able to resume a U.N.-backed political transition interrupted by the Houthis' seizure of Sanaa in September.

He said Gulf Arab concern over the Houthis' influence in Yemen had been heightened in January by satellite imagery showing Houthi forces repositioning long-range Scud missiles in northern districts near the Saudi border.

The Scuds, with a range of between 250 km (150 miles) and 650 km (400 miles), were aimed northwards at Saudi territory.

He said Yemen's military had about 300 Scuds, the bulk of which were believed to be in the hands of the Houthis and allied military units loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, and that the campaign so far had destroyed 21 of them.

Struggle For Stability

Yemen, by far the poorest country on the Arabian peninsula, has struggled to regain stability since mass protests in 2011 that eventually unseated Saleh after 33 years in power. Hadi led a national dialogue that was discussing a new constitution when the Houthis took the capital and pushed him aside.

The Gulf diplomatic official said the coalition would not accept that the Houthi "coup" had succeeded, and wanted Yemenis to push for a resumption of the U.N.-backed process.

He said it could take five or six months for the campaign's aims to be realised, but there was room for everyone, including Houthis, in that process of forging a new constitution.

The official said Houthi forces were being trained and supported on the ground by about 5,000 experts from Iran and its regional allies, the Hezbollah group in Lebanon and Iraqi Shi'ite militias.

He said the Houthis were today a "quintessentially Yemeni tribal" movement, but with a few years of Iranian training would become a more formidable force, capable of ruling much of the country.

It was widely recognised that Hadi lacked a significant power base, the official said.

But Arab states supported Hadi as he was Yemen's legitimate head of state and had a role as a temporary, transitional figure leading the U.N.-backed reform process, which was meant to shepherd Yemen to stability after decades of autocracy followed by political upheaval.

Saleh's political party called on Friday for a cessation of hostilities by both sides, a statement carried by the party's website said. The Gulf diplomatic official welcomed that, but said it would be good to hear Saleh say it in his own words.