(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Thousands of rebel sympathisers thronged the Yemeni capital yesterday to celebrate a year since the city's seizure, despite a relentless campaign of air attacks by a Saudi-led coalition.
Hours before the gathering, warplanes kept up their pounding of positions manned by the Iran-backed Shia Houthi rebels in Sanaa.
Six months of coalition strikes in support of exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi expanded in July into a ground operation, but the rebels still control much of north and central Yemen.
The Houthis declared September 21 a public holiday to mark the "revolution" as they sent a delegation to Oman for renewed consultations with UN special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed.
Several thousand sympathisers thronged Bab al-Yaman outside Sanaa's Old City after a call by rebel leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi.
His fighters overran Sanaa unopposed one year ago with the backing of renegade troops still loyal to Hadi's ousted predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Demonstrators waving Yemen's black, white and red flag-with some also brandishing the yellow standard of Lebanon's Shia Hezbollah movement-gathered yesterday in a festive atmosphere.
A display of songs and folk dancing also saw praise for Houthi "resistance" and denunciations of both the United States and Israel.
Earlier, witnesses said pre-dawn air strikes on Sanaa targeted Saleh supporters as well as the Houthis.
One raid went for the home of a leading lawmaker from Saleh's General People's Congress party, Ahmed al-Kahlani, they said.
Others targeted arms depots controlled by pro-Saleh units in the city's east.
Saleh is himself a Shia, but the Houthis' alliance with the ousted strongman was widely seen as a marriage of convenience because they led repeated rebellions against his rule before his overthrow after a bloody Arab Spring-inspired uprising in 2011.
The rebels had urged a huge turnout to mark yesterday's anniversary.
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