SANAA,
Yemen — Yemen's internationally recognized government has declared a
nighttime curfew, starting Monday, in the key southern port city of Aden
in a bid to push back against recent incursions by al-Qaida and other
Islamic militant groups, the city's governor said.
According to
the Aden governor, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, the curfew will be in place
every night from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. for an unspecified period.
The
measure came after government forces retook Aden's strategic port after
heavy clashes with militants who had seized it earlier over the weekend.
Al-Qaida and other militants have been using the port for lucrative
smuggling operations.
However, it remained unclear how well the
curfew can be enforced since the Yemeni forces, backed by a Saudi-led
coalition of mostly Arab states that is supported by the United States,
are stretched thin as they battle the Shiite rebels known as Houthis.
Yemen's
al-Qaida branch has long been seen by Washington as the most potent
affiliate of the extremist network and has been linked to a number of
attempted attacks on the U.S. The group, known as the Al-Qaida in the
Arabian Peninsula, has captured much of Yemen's sprawling Hadramawt
province and its capital, Mukalla, as well as the capital of southern
Abyan province, Zinjibar and the town of Jaar.
The group and
Islamic State-linked militants have exploited the chaos of the country's
civil war to stage significant land grabs and expand its footprint in
southern Yemen.
According to U.N. figures, the war in Yemen has
killed at least 5,884 people since March, when fighting escalated after
the Saudi-led coalition began launching airstrikes targeting the rebels
The
conflict pits the internationally recognized government, backed by a
Saudi-led coalition against the Houthi rebels, allied with a former
president.
The two sides launched peace negotiations in December
in Switzerland, and a truce was declared on the ground, which never
really took hold as both the government forces and the rebels ignored
it. That truce formally ended over the weekend.
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