Saudi-backed Yemeni fighters completed their offensive to retake the southern city of Aden from the Houthi militia on Friday, residents said, as fighting in one main district subsided.
Their victory in the port city - backed up by training and heavy weapons delivered by an Arab military coalition - marks a turning point in almost four months of aerial bombing and civil war in which battle lines seldom changed but more than 3,500 people have been killed and a million displaced.
The war in Yemen has pitted the Sunni Muslim Gulf states which support the exiled government against the Shi’ite Houthis allied to Iran, in a conflict that has further raised the stakes as the Middles East grapples with regional rivalries and sectarian strife.
Aden has been a focus of fighting since the Iranian-allied Houthis first laid siege to it in March when it was the last bastion to the government which then fled to Saudi Arabia.
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http://www.france24.com/en/20150717-yemen-exiled-government-says-aden-liberated-houthis-expelled
