(MENAFN- The Peninsula) The UN Security Council yesterday imposed an arms embargo targeting the Iran-allied Houthi rebels who now control most of Yemen as battles in the south of the country intensified.
It also demanded the Houthis stop fighting and withdraw from areas they have seized, including the capital Sana'a.
On the ground, southern militiamen claimed gains against the Houthis on several battlefronts across southern Yemen, including districts of the port city of Aden, the last stronghold of loyalists to Saudi-backed President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi.
In New York, the UN Security Council imposed a global asset freeze and travel ban on Ahmed Saleh, the former head of Yemen's Republican Guard, and on Abdul Malik Al Huthi, a Houthi leader.
Saleh's father, former Yemen president Ali Abdullah Saleh, and two other senior Houthi leaders, Abd Al Khaliq Al Huthi and Abdullah Yahya Al Hakim, had been blacklisted by the Security Council in November.
The Security Council also expressed concern at what it called "destabilising actions" taken by former president Saleh, including supporting the Houthis.
The elder Saleh, who was forced to step down in 2012, is widely seen as having a behind-the scenes role in the conflict in league with the Houthis.
The resolution imposed an arms embargo on the five men and "those acting on their behalf or at their direction in Yemen" - effectively the Houthis and soldiers loyal to Saleh who are fighting alongside the Houthis.
The council voted 14 in favour, while Russia abstained, saying some of its proposals for the resolution drafted by council member Jordan and Gulf Arab states were not included.
"The co-sponsors refused to include the requirements insisted upon by Russia addressed to all sides to the conflict to swiftly halt fire and to begin peace talks," Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the council after the vote.
Iran, meanwhile, prepared to submit a four-point peace plan for Yemen to the United Nations today, state media said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, speaking in Madrid, said Tehran's peace initiative involved a ceasefire, humanitarian assistance, a dialogue between Yemeni factions and a broad-based government.
"This issue should be resolved by the Yemenis. Iran and Saudi Arabia need to talk but we cannot talk to determine the future of Yemen," he told a news conference.
Arab states have been bombing the Houthis for three weeks in support of militias resisting an advance by the group and army units loyal to Saleh.
The Houthis, northern-based Shias, seized control of Sana'a in September, confining Hadi to his presidential residence. He fled to Aden in February then escaped to Riyadh last month as Houthi forces closed in on the city.
In a related development, Al Qaeda in Yemen announced that its spiritual leader was killed by a US air strike, according to a statement distributed by the group online. Ibrahim Al Rubaish was a Saudi national released from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in 2006.
His death may be a sign that a covert US drone programme against Yemen's branch of the global militant group continues despite the American military withdrawal.
Separately, Al Qaeda said it killed 15 soldiers fleeing homeward from a military base near Balhaf in the east of the country. A local official said the men were captured and stabbed to death outside the nearby city of Ataq.
Southern militia sources said they wrested control of the army base loyal to the Houthis after heavy fighting on Monday night near the Balhaf liquefied natural gas plant, in southern Shabwa province on the Arabian Sea.
Yemen LNG, the company managing the facility, said it had halted production due to insecurity and was evacuating staff. The plant was intact and its surrounding area secure, it said.
After prolonged street fighting in the southern city of Aden, Houthi fighters withdrew yesterday from Aden's Khor Maksar district, where the international airport and foreign missions are located.
The pull-out deprives the Houthis of a bridge to downtown areas where they face heavy resistance from local fighters.
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