Yemeni rebels shell Aden as Saudi launches more airstrikes

Yemen's Shiite rebels and security forces loyal to the former president launched a fresh offencive today against the southern city of Aden, shelling it and battling local militias, but were pushed back by at least two airstrikes on the fifth day of a Saudi-led air campaign, security officials said.
The rebels, known as Houthis, meanwhile accused the Saudi-led coalition of bombing a displaced persons camp in the northern rebel stronghold of Saada, killing 40 people, including women and children. The report was carried on the rebels' TV network.
However, witnesses told The Associated Press that the camp used to house displaced people from an earlier conflict that ended five years ago is now occupied by Houthi forces and that most of those killed were fighters.

It was not immediately possible to resolve the conflicting accounts.
Aden, the economic center of the Arab world's poorest nation, was declared the provisional capital by embattled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi before he fled the country last week.
The Houthis overran the capital Sanaa in September. They are allied with former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who stepped down following a 2011 Arab Spring uprising but has maintained influence through loyalists in the security forces.
Yemeni security officials say the combined force of Houthis and Saleh loyalists is positioned about 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of Aden, near the southern city of Zinjibar.