SANAA, Yemen — Yemen's Houthi rebels and allies from the ousted president's party have formed a new government, deepening divisions in the Arab world's poorest nation.

Houthis and their allies from ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh's General People's Congress party announced late Monday the formation of the so-called National Salvation Government, the second in Yemen, based in the capital Sanaa.

Yemen has an internationally-recognized government based in the southern city of Aden.

The announcement came at a time that U.S.-backed, U.N.-mediated peace efforts have faltered.

The Houthis launched an offensive from their northern enclave in 2014 to take Sanaa and much of northern Yemen. The rebels forced President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee the country and seek shelter in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition, mostly consisting of Arab Gulf states, subsequently intervened in Yemen, launching a punishing air campaign against the Houthis. </s> DUBAI (Reuters) - Yemen’s armed Houthi movement and its political allies formed a new government on Monday, the Houthi-run state news agency Saba reported, in what appeared a blow to U.N.-backed efforts to end 20 months of war in the country.

Diplomats had hoped the Houthis, who control the capital Sanaa, would hold off on putting together a cabinet of their loyalists and instead form a unity government with their Yemeni foes, whom they pushed into Saudi exile.

The Houthis, who control territory with more than half of Yemen’s population, previously said forming a government with their allies did not mean abandoning the U.N.-sponsored peace process.

The flight of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the internationally recognized president, triggered military intervention by a coalition led Saudi Arabia that has carried out thousands of air strikes on the Houthis but failed to dislodge them from Sanaa.

Having caused the deaths of at least 10,000 people and unleashed a humanitarian crisis, the Arabian Peninsula conflict has continued despite several U.N.-backed ceasefires and peace efforts by Western and U.N. diplomats.

The Houthis this month agreed to a U.N. plan which required them to hand in heavy weapons and pull out of main cities in exchange for participating in a unity government with Hadi, who rejected the proposal, saying he was the legitimate president.

Making common cause with the party of powerful ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Iran-allied Houthis previously ruled the parts of Yemen they controlled through a “Supreme Political Council”, a body which announced the new government.

“The meeting stressed that the government, which was formed amid the difficult conditions experienced by the country, is tasked with putting in order the internal situation and confronting the (Saudi) aggression,” Saba reported.

“The Council noted that this comes amid the intransigence of the aggression and its (Yemeni) mercenaries to move within the framework of a national solution ... to spare the country further bloodshed and destruction.”

Rajeh Badi, a spokesman for the exiled Hadi government, said the move showed “a disregard not just for the Yemeni people but also for the international community.”

“Over a year and a half since the Houthi militia’s coup, no one in the international community has recognized the entities they have formed,” Badi added.

There was no immediate comment from the United Nations. </s> UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N.’s special envoy for Yemen says an announcement by the Houthi rebels and allies from the ousted president’s party to unilaterally declare the formation of a new government in Sanaa is an obstacle to the peace process.

Former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s General People’s Congress and Ansar Allah, the political arm of the Shiite rebels known as Houthis, announced the agreement Monday.

U.N. Special Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement Tuesday that the announcement “does not serve the interests of the people of Yemen in these difficult times.” The announcement came at a time that U.S.-backed, U.N.-mediated peace efforts have faltered.

The Houthis have been fighting forces loyal to the internationally recognized government based in Aden. The pro-government forces are backed by a Saudi-led coalition. </s> The move, reported by the Houthi-run state news agency on Monday, has been seen as a blow to U.N.-backed efforts to end 20 months of war in Yemen.

"The announcement by (the Houthi) Ansar Allah and the General People’s Congress on the formation of a new government in Sana’a represents a new and concerning obstacle to the peace process and does not serve the interests of the people of Yemen in these difficult times," Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement.

The unilateral declaration contradicted recent comments by the Houthis to the U.N. and to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and only complicated the search for a peace deal, which needed to be based on U.N. talks, Ould Cheikh Ahmed said.

"There is still a chance to pull Yemen back from the brink," he said, adding that all parties to the conflict should recommit to a cessation of hostilities, including a complete halt to ground and air military activities.

The formation of the new government was also condemned by the Gulf Cooperation Council, whose member Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition backing Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the internationally recognised president.

The coalition has carried out thousands of air strikes on the Houthis but failed to dislodge them from the capital Sanaa.

"The step of forming a government indicates the enormous importance of reinforcing our domestic position and serving the people, despite the difficult economic situation," the Houthi group's leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, said in a statement carried on the website of a Houthi-controlled news channel.

Diplomats had hoped the Houthis, who control Sanaa, would hold off on putting together a cabinet of their loyalists and instead form a unity government with their Yemeni foes, whom they pushed into Saudi exile.

The Houthis, who control territory with more than half of Yemen's population, previously said forming a government with their allies did not mean abandoning the U.N.-sponsored peace process. </s> Yemen’s National Salvation Government was sworn in on Tuesday in Sanaa after the supreme political council had approved the formation of the 42-member cabinet headed by Abdol Aziz bin Habtur.

Habtur stated that the cabinet will exert all the possible efforts to meet the Yemenis’ aspirations as the political council had stressed that the main mission of the new government is to organize the domestic conditions and to confront the Saudi aggression militarily, politically and economically.

Yemen has been since March 26, 2015 under brutal aggression by Saudi-led coalition.

Thousands have been martyred and injured in the attack, with the vast majority of them are civilians.

Riyadh launched the attack on Yemen in a bid to restore power to fugitive ex-president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi who is a close ally to Saudi Arabia.

Source: Al-Manar Website </s> The internationally-recognized Yemeni prime minister and 13 ministers of his government are preparing to leave the presidential palace in the southern city of Aden and head westwards to a military base of the Saudi Arabia-led Arab coalition amid a separatist revolt, a government source told EFE on Tuesday.

This step comes after southern Yemeni separatists, who are backed by the United Arab Emirates, wrested control of much of the city from forces loyal to the Riyadh-exiled President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, whose government had moved its base to Aden when the Houthi rebel insurgency took over the capital Sanaa. </s> The minority Shia group has been in control of Sanaa over the past two years, after driving out the internationally-recognized government and forcing its president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, to flee to neighboring Saudi Arabia.

The so-called National Salvation Government, formed on Monday, will be headed by Abdul Aziz Habtoor, a politician who had defected from Hadi's government and joined the Houthi coalition last year, according to the movement's news agency Saba.

Houthi spokesperson Mohammed al Bukhaiti said that the new government, formed with a number of allied groups, "was meant to strengthen the partnership in the country."

"It includes parties from all the political spectrum," he told CNN over the phone from Sanaa, while adding that it excluded politicians supportive of Hadi's exiled government.

The move comes at a time when the United Nations is scrambling to negotiate a peace deal between the waring parties and set the groundwork for an inclusive unity government. Yemen: The 'forgotten war' cloaked in the shadow of Syria Al Bukhaiti told CNN the newly-declared government was "not an alternative to a future unity government that would include members of those who are pro-aggression". His reference was a swipe at the Saudi-led military coalition that has been backing Hadi and bombarding Houthi positions in Yemen since March 2015. Following the declaration of the government, Rajeh Badi, a spokesman for the Hadi government, was quoted by Reuters as saying that the move showed "a disregard not just for the Yemeni people but also for the international community." The UN envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, has yet to comment on the development. He met with a number of officials in Yemen's neighboring countries over the weekend to "prepare for a new round" of talks, he said in a statement on Sunday. The conflict in Yemen has killed an estimated 10,000 people and left millions in need of aid, according to the UN. The World Food Programme warned last month of the devastating toll that hunger could have on the war-torn country, adding that "an entire generation could be crippled by hunger". Since peace talks in Kuwait failed in August, the coalition has intensified air raids, despite vocal criticism from rights groups that the bombardments have been indiscriminate and could constitute war crimes. The attacks have often hit civilian targets with devastating results. In October, the Saudi-led coalition admitted that it was responsible for an airstrike that killed at least 155 people at a wake in Yemen that month. The US has come under increasing pressure to stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia . The US Senate last month rejected a bipartisan proposal to block a pending $1.15 billion arms sale to Riyadh. </s> Separatist forces in Yemen have surrounded the palace of the internationally-recognized president in the interim capital of Aden, throwing the southern Arabian nation into further political chaos.

 

 The fall of Aden ends two days of fighting between troops loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and forces with the Southern Transitional Council, a group formed last year to revive the former independent state of South Yemen. The former states of North and South Yemen were merged under one flag in 1990.

 

 The STC had demanded that Hadi dismiss the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Obeid bin Daghr by Sunday, accusing it of corruption and mismanagement. The International Committee of the Red Cross says at least 36 people have been killed in the fighting since Sunday. 

 

 The fighting split the Saudi-led coalition formed after Houthi rebels chased Hadi's government out of the capital, Sanaa, in northern Yemen. 

 

 Saudi-led coalition airstrikes trying to oust the Houthis have obliterated entire civilian neighborhoods, including schools and hospitals. Yemen is also battling a deadly cholera outbreak and a possible famine. The U.N. estimates about 80 percent of Yemenis are in desperate need of food, medicine and clean water. </s> ADEN - Yemen’s southern separatists took control of all government military camps in Aden on Saturday, officials said, after four days of clashes between nominal allies who have turned on each other, complicating UN efforts to end the four-year war.

The separatists also surrounded the all-but empty presidential palace of the internationally recognized government that is temporarily based in the port city, a government official and another local official told Reuters.

At least eight civilians were killed on Friday in fighting between the separatists and government forces, according to medical sources. Fighting resumed early on Saturday but has since abated, residents said.

The combatants are both part of the Saudi-led pro-government coalition that has been battling the Iran-aligned armed Houthi movement in Yemen since March 2015, indicating a rift within the alliance. The war has killed tens of thousands and pushed the poorest Arabian Peninsula nation to the brink of famine.

“It is all over, the (Southern Transitional Council) forces are in control of all the military camps,” an official in President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s government told Reuters.

He said the two sides had agreed the separatist forces would not try to seize the palace, located in the predominantly residential Crater district, while government forces would refrain from attacking them.

The separatists also took over the house of Interior Minister Ahmed al-Mayssari after he was evacuated from his residence with the help of coalition forces, government officials said. President Hadi is based in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

There was no immediate comment from the Western-backed, Sunni Muslim coalition led by Saudi Arabia that intervened in Yemen after the Houthis ousted Hadi’s government from power in the capital Sanaa in late 2014.

Alliance member the United Arab Emirates, which has armed and trained thousands of southern separatist fighters, earlier called for calm and for the two sides to focus on opposing the Houthis.

Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed called on UN special envoy Martin Griffiths, who is trying to de-escalate tensions across Yemen, “to deploy efforts and exert pressure” to that purpose.

The Norwegian Refugee Council said the battles had trapped civilians in their homes with dwindling supplies of food and water. The aid group said prolonged fighting in Aden, a gateway for commercial and aid supplies, could impact efforts to tackle the humanitarian crisis gripping the rest of the country.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged the parties to end hostilities and engage in “inclusive dialogue”. The clashes began on Wednesday after the separatists accused an Islamist party allied to Hadi of complicity in a missile attack on a military parade in Aden, one of three separate attacks that targeted southern forces.

The Houthis claimed responsibility for the parade attack that killed a senior southern commander.

Despite their alliance, the separatists and Hadi’s government have rival agendas for Yemen’s future.

Analysts say the Houthis may have used the parade attack to test dynamics on the ground after the UAE in June scaled down its military presence in Yemen under pressure from Western allies to end the war and concerns about rising tensions with Iran in the Gulf.

The United Nations is trying to implement a stalled peace deal in the main port city of Hodeidah, further to the north, to pave the way for wider political negotiations to end the war.
Yemen's Houthi movement and its allies form a new government.