Region

BEIRUT — Islamist rebels led by Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate launched a preemptive strike Monday on pro-regime forces in a mountainous area near the Lebanese border, setting off fierce clashes, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Al Nusra Front and other groups attacked positions belonging to the regime and Lebanon's Hizbollah, which backs the government, in the Qalamun region.

"Violent clashes are ongoing since this morning between Hizbollah, regime troops and pro-regime militiamen on one side and Islamist factions and Al Nusra on the other side," the group said.

Last year, government forces backed by the Shiite Hizbollah movement managed to expel rebels from most of Qalamun, which lies north of Damascus and runs along the Lebanese border.

But opposition fighters remain entrenched in the mountainous area along the border with Lebanon, and have launched attacks from there.

A source close to Al Nusra Front confirmed the fighting under way in the region.

“This is the zero hour and the battle in the region has begun,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A Syrian source on the ground also described the clashes in the area.

“The Syrian army and its allies blocked an attack by armed groups on army positions near the border with Lebanon,” he told AFP.

He said a number of opposition fighters were killed and wounded when pro-government forces ambushed them and destroyed their equipment.

The Britain-based observatory said clashes were ongoing and confirmed there were casualties among rebel ranks, but could not give further details.

“The attack by Al Nusra, as well as the Islamist and rebel factions, came as a preemptive strike against Hizbollah, which was expected to begin military operations [against the rebels] in Qalamun in the coming days,” said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman.

On Twitter, Al Nusra’s official accounts said the organisation had “finished training specialised rocket team and they have spread throughout the hills of Qalamun in anticipation of an enemy advance.”

In recent weeks, local Lebanese media had reported an impending offensive by pro-government forces on Qalamun.

The rebel presence in the area has been a persistent problem for both the Syrian army and Lebanon’s military, which has battled jihadists crossing from Syria in Lebanese border towns in recent months.

Last year, jihadists coming from Syria briefly overran the Lebanese border town of Arsal, seizing several dozen Lebanese security forces as hostages.

Four have since been executed and another 25 — police and soldiers — remain in the hands of Al Nusra and Daesh terror group.

A Lebanese security source said Lebanese troops were stepping up patrols along the Syrian border by Qalamun.

“The patrols along the border have increased, and the role of the Lebanese army is to protect Arsal and the border,” the source said.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Images of Israeli forces firing stun grenades are usually set in the West Bank and involve Palestinian protesters. But on Sunday the situation was quite different — riot police battling thousands of Ethiopian Jews in the centre of Tel Aviv.

The spark was a week-old video showing two Israeli policemen punching, beating and trying to arrest an Israeli soldier of Ethiopian descent in what appeared to be an unprovoked attack.

The two-minute video is the latest in a string of incidents that have raised uncomfortable questions about Israel's treatment of ethnic minorities and its struggle to integrate newcomers into broader society, whether Jews or non-Jews.

On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met the soldier, Damas Fikadeh, at his Jerusalem office and hugged him.

"I was shocked by the [video] footage," he said on Twitter. "We cannot accept it, and we will change it."

Some commentators have highlighted latent racism in a country that has absorbed millions of migrants over the past 60 years but still agonizes over differences between East European and Middle Eastern Jews, relations with its large Arab minority, and how to handle more recent arrivals from Africa.

"There is a problem, there are discrimination issues, there is racism in Israel," said Fentahun Assefa-Dawit, the director of Tebeka, an advocacy group for Ethiopian Israelis, who number around 130,000, many of them born in Israel.

"We want the prime minister to take this matter into his hands," he said moments before he was due to meet Netanyahu. "We urge him, we demand him to bring these issues to an end."

Deep seated problems

In the run-up to Israel's election in March and the weeks since there have been a series of violent incidents, comments by politicians and policy proposals that have fuelled concerns the country has a race problem — not just when it comes to the 20 per cent Arab population but to minority Jewish groups too.

Last week, an Ethiopian Jew said he was beaten by inspectors from Israel’s population and immigration authority because they thought he was a migrant from Sudan or Eritrea. The immigration authority said the man attacked the inspectors first.

On the day of the election on March 17, fearing he could lose, Netanyahu said “Arab voters are coming out in droves”, comments that offended the Arab-Israeli population and drew accusations of racism. The prime minister later apologised.

For months, Israel has been threatening to imprison thousands of illegal African migrants if they do not agree to be deported to third countries in Africa, despite the supreme court expressing deep reservations about the policy.

In the 1990s, Israeli officials confirmed that blood donated by Ethiopian Israelis had been thrown away out of fear that it could be infected by HIV and other diseases.

Racism in Israeli society is “far more commonplace and far more toxic than we dare tell ourselves”, leading political commentator Nahum Barnea wrote in Yediot Ahronoth on Monday.

“Hatred of the other, or of anyone perceived as being the other, is not only deeply rooted here, but it also receives encouragement from politicians on the eve of elections.”

Ben Caspit, a columnist with Maariv newspaper, said it was not up to Netanyahu to resolve how the Ethiopian community is treated but for all Israelis to wake up and address it.

“The people who are to blame for the terrible things that the members of this lovely community have been forced to undergo on a daily basis is us,” he said.

“Those among us who turn up their noses when an Ethiopian family enters the neighbourhood, those among us who are not happy to see Ethiopian children in their children’s classroom.”

Around 20,000 Ethiopian Jews, who trace their roots to the biblical King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, were brought to Israel on secret flights in the mid 1980s and early 1990s.

The offspring of those early arrivals have worked hard to integrate, many serving in elite units of the army with distinction. An Ethiopian woman won a recent Miss Israel beauty contest. But after mandatory military service, acceptance in the workplace has proved more of a struggle for many.

“When an Ethiopian applies for a job, as qualified and impressive as he might be, he is not going to be invited for an interview because he has an Ethiopian name on his CV,” said Assefa-Dawit of Tebeka, the advocacy group.

“Israel is our country, there’s no ‘us and them’. This is our home. The community is crying out for the government to resolve this.”

BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces besieged inside the country’s largest oil refinery are running low on food and pleading for reinforcements to save them from Daesh militants who have advanced deep into the compound in the past week.

The insurgents now hold large sections of the sprawling Baiji refinery complex in northern Iraq where some 200 policemen, soldiers and elite special forces are holding out.

“We are surrounded by Daesh from all sides,” said a policeman called Mohanad, speaking via telephone from the refinery where his unit has taken up defensive positions in a guesthouse on the eastern side of the complex.

“We can hear Daesh fighters shouting and threatening to behead anyone they catch. We are running short of ammunition, food and drinking water. We eat only one meal a day. We tear our uniforms to bandage other soldiers’ and policemen’s wounds.”

Mohanad, who is from Baghdad, said he had set aside one bullet to end his own life in case they were overcome by the militants: “It’s an easier way to die than being beheaded”.

Baiji refinery has been one of the most fiercely contested spots in Iraq since Daesh militants tore through the north last summer and proclaimed a caliphate.

Government forces held out for months under siege inside the refinery last year. The siege was broken in November, but the fighters launched a new offensive there last month after being driven out of the nearby city of Tikrit.

After the militants captured much of the compound, Iraqi officials said on April 18 they were again fully in control. But the militants have since gained ground once again.

Two officers from the military operations command for Salahuddin province where Baiji is located said the insurgents had now pushed so far into the complex that it was almost impossible for planes to target them without damaging the refinery as well.

Photographs published by Daesh show crates of ammunition they say were plundered from Iraqi forces in Baiji and the disfigured bodies of policemen identifiable only from their blue camouflage uniforms. The pictures cannot be independently confirmed.

Colonel Imad Al Saiedi, who commands an army infantry regiment positioned near the refinery said it had been completely surrounded after militants cut all remaining supply routes used by the security forces.

“Daesh fighters have been launching multiple suicide car bomb attacks against our troops’ positions daily and due to the lack of reinforcements almost two thirds of the refinery is now under their control,” he said.

The Baiji refinery was producing around 175,000 barrels per day before it was closed, a senior Iraqi official said in June, almost a third of Iraq’s domestic consumption of fuel.

A member of the Salahuddin provincial council said around half of the complex was under insurgent control.

“We are receiving SOS calls from policemen trapped inside the refinery with scarce food supplies asking [us] to convey their pleas to Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi to save them from a tragic end at the hands of Daesh if no reinforcements are sent,” Khazaal Hummadi said.

Iraqi forces including Shiite paramilitaries inflicted a major defeat on Daesh early last month in Tikrit, their first big counter-offensive since the fighters’ lightning assault last year. But the militants have struck back at Baiji and in the western province of Anbar.

An elite special forces commander who was wounded last week in clashes at the refinery and evacuated through an eastern route that has since been cut off by the militants said they had taken over the Salahuddin 1, Salahuddin 2 and Al Shamal sub-refineries.

“Also most of the crude storage in the northern part of the refinery and fuel and gas tanks in the southern part are under their control,” he added, describing the soldiers as being in a state of “total shock and disarray.”

“It’s too much for us to handle alone,” he said, adding the only way to break the siege was for Iraqi forces to retake the nearby town of Baiji from the militants so that a passage could be opened to the refinery from the south.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia is considering temporary halts in coalition air strikes against rebels in Yemen to allow for aid deliveries, Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir said Monday.

The kingdom will consult members of the coalition on "finding specific areas inside Yemen... where all air operations will be paused at specific times to allow for the delivery of aid”, Jubeir said in a statement.

The Saudi-led coalition of Sunni Arab countries launched air strikes in Yemen in late March against Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels and their allies after they seized control of large parts of the country including the capital Sanaa.

President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi fled Yemen as the rebels advanced on his southern refuge of Aden.

The United Nations has repeatedly warned that impoverished Yemen faces a major humanitarian crisis and calls have been growing for efforts to increase aid deliveries.

Jubeir said Saudi Arabia “plans to establish a centre on its territory to be in charge of coordinating all humanitarian aid efforts” with the UN, donors and other relevant agencies.

He warned the rebels against “taking advantage” of any pause in the bombing.

Saudi Arabia “will deal with any violations in connection with the suspension of air strikes or movements that hinder humanitarian efforts”, he said.

The United Nations has called for a humanitarian pause in the conflict, as relief agencies say they desperately need supplies, including fuel to run infrastructure such as hospitals.

It warned that key infrastructure in the war-torn country, including water supplies, health services and telecommunications, are on the verge of breaking down due to a major fuel shortage.

The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Johannes van der Klaauw, told AFP in Djibouti on Saturday that an arms embargo was affecting delivery of supplies, urging a humanitarian pause “at least for a couple of days”.

Russia proposed last week a draft statement at the UN Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire or at least humanitarian pauses, and an urgent return to political negotiations, but it failed to win endorsement.

Russia’s diplomacy has been greeted with some suspicion given the country’s close ties to Iran, which is supporting the Houthis.

A US diplomat said Washington supports humanitarian pauses and was urging Saudi Arabia to take measures to ensure aid deliveries reach civilians trapped in the fighting.

At least 1,200 people have been killed in fighting in Yemen since March 19 and thousands more have been wounded, according to the UN. It estimates that at least 300,000 people have been displaced by the conflict.

DOHA — Qatar's labour minister said Monday he hopes the country's controversial "kafala" system, which critics have likened to modern-day slavery, will be abolished before the end of this year.

Dr Abdullah bin Saleh Al Khulaifi, the minister of labour and social affairs, said he was "90 per cent" certain the system would be replaced within the next seven months.

"I hope it will be prior to the year end," said Khulaifi.

"We discussed it, our stakeholders have looked at it... Now it is on track.

"Do I believe it will come out positively? Yes, I do. Because at the end of the day I believe it is good for the economy, it's good for the country."

Asked if the scheme would be abolished by the end of the year, Khulaifi replied: "I am 90 per cent hopeful or believe that it will be."

Under kafala, employers can prevent foreign workers from changing jobs or leaving the country.

Long condemned by rights groups, the system has become a major focus of criticism since Qatar was awarded the 2022 football World Cup, as the country's labour laws come under increasing international scrutiny.

Abolition of kafala would represent the biggest reform of Qatar's labour market.

Doha says it will replace the system with one based instead on employment contracts.

These contracts would last a maximum of five years and the current exit permit system would be replaced with one where workers give the authorities a maximum of 72 hours' notice that they want to leave the country.

Khulaifi also said Qatar would fully implement another major labour reform — an electronic payment system for thousands of migrant labourers — by mid-August.

This would ensure that up to one million workers get paid at least once a month and, in some cases, every fortnight.

However, the reforms do not go far enough for some.

Mustafa Qadri, Amnesty's Gulf migrant rights researcher, welcomed any change but said more was needed.

"It's another form of kafala with a different name, admittedly less restrictive but with many of the same problems."

He added that contract arrangements and the ability to leave the country for workers under the proposed changes would "still be a situation of forced labour because the employer still has the power over the employee".

NAIROBI — US Secretary of State John Kerry vowed support to Kenya on Monday in the battle against Somalia's Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Shabab, after calling for unity in the face of terror attacks.

"The US continues to stand resolutely with the government and people of Kenya in the effort to end scourge of violent extremism," Kerry said.

Kenya is struggling to stop increased cross-border attacks by the militants even though it has thousands of troops in neighbouring southern Somalia as part of an African Union force, which Washington has funded by over half a billion dollars since 2007.

Last month Al Shabab gunmen massacred close to 150 people, mostly students, in a raid on a university in the northeastern Kenyan town of Garissa, the worst ever attack by the insurgents.

The raid followed a string of other massacres in the northeast and Muslim-majority coastal areas, and after the September 2013 siege of the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi which left at least 67 dead.

Since the Garissa attack Kenya threatened to shut down the world's largest refugee camp complex in Dadaab and send 360,000 Somali refugees back home, but Kerry said after meeting with President Uhuru Kenyatta that it would remain open.

"I'm confident Dadaab will remain open while we work through how they will be able to go home, by doing a better job of finishing our task in Somalia," Kerry said.

Kerry's trip to the east African nation is the first high-level visit since 2012, and comes after years of tensions surrounding Kenyatta after he was charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity.

The ICC has since abandoned the case against Kenyatta over his alleged role in the 2007-2008 post-election violence, citing a lack of evidence and Kenya's failure to cooperate — somewhat removing Kenyatta's pariah status.

Kenyatta told Kerry during their meeting that the country needs "support in terms of training, equipment and surveillance”, as well as to "work more closely with the US to control financing of terrorism”, a Kenyan government statement read.

Diplomats earlier said Kerry would raise human rights issues with Kenyatta, whose government has been accused of clamping down on civil society groups and the press.

The pair's meeting also came as Kenya's deputy president William Ruto reportedly told worshippers at a church service in Nairobi that homosexuality "violates our religious and cultural beliefs”.

Kerry and Kenyatta met for around half an hour, with the Secretary of State saying it was a "good meeting". The US envoy also met opposition leaders.

Kerry's trip also comes ahead of US President Barack Obama's visit to his late father's home country in July.

Earlier Kerry visited a memorial in Kenya to the 1998 bombing of the US embassy. The attack by Al Qaeda was the worst carried out by Islamist militants against the east African nation, killing 213 people.

"The terrorists who struck on August 7, 1998 failed utterly in their purpose, which was to implant fear in the hearts of the Kenyan people and to divide America from the citizens of this country," Kerry said.

"We do have however the power to fight back, not only with our military and law enforcement, but also through something that may be even more powerful and that may make a bigger difference in the end, and that is our unity and the character of our ideals," Kerry said.

Kerry, who arrived from Sri Lanka on Sunday afternoon, later heads for the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti, where the US has a major military base, and where refugees from war-torn Yemen are arriving.

Kerry then heads to Saudi Arabia and France for talks on regional security, as well as to take part in commemorations marking the end of World War II in Europe.

AL-KHOR, Qatar/PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Representatives at preliminary talks aiming to end Afghanistan's long war have agreed that Taliban insurgents should open a political office for negotiations, but disagreement over foreign troops is still hampering prospects for a ceasefire.

A statement issued on Monday outlined the agreements reached by at least 40 delegates to a "non-official meeting" bringing together Taliban representatives, Afghan government figures and UN representatives at a two-day meeting held in Qatar.

The dialogue was a step toward a peace process that has proved elusive during a war that has killed tens of thousands of Afghans since the Taliban were driven from power by a 2001 US-led military operation.

In a further blow for peace hopes, Taliban fighters killed at least 18 police early on Monday in attacks in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, a local official said.

Insurgents have also pressed an assault on Kunduz city, a provincial capital in the north.

In Qatar the delegates agreed that the Taliban should re-open a political office in Doha that caused a furore in 2013 when it was briefly inaugurated as part of a previous, failed attempt to start negotiations.

At the televised inauguration ceremony, the Taliban representatives raised the flag of their former regime, enraging then-president Hamid Karzai and dooming hoped-for talks.

In Washington, US State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke declined comment on the report of a new Taliban office but said an Afghan-led peace process was the best hope for the country and the region.

Afghanistan's new leader, Ashraf Ghani, has made negotiations a priority since taking office last year.

The delegates also called for the removal of key Taliban leaders' names from a UN terrorism blacklist so they could travel to negotiations, according to the statement by the Pugwash Council, a global organisation that promotes conflict resolution. It co-hosted the talks with Qatar's government.

Pugwash said more than 40 representatives including several Afghan women had attended the Qatar meeting.

However, there was no progress on the main obstacle to a ceasefire — the continued presence of around 10,000 US military trainers and counter-terrorism forces.

The talks ended on Sunday with pledges to hold a similar dialogue in the future. The Afghan government has made no statement on them, though members of the country's High Peace Council attended.

One Taliban participant said an eight-member Taliban delegation had held direct talks with Afghan officials.

"The Afghan delegation and Qayyum Kochai, uncle of [Afghan] President Ashraf Ghani, demanded we stop our fighting and announce a ceasefire," he said.

The Taliban said they would not stop fighting until all foreign forces had left Afghanistan, he said.

The government delegation argued that most foreigners had already left and only trainers remained, who would also leave if the Taliban stopped fighting, he said.

TEL AVIV (AFP) — A Tel Aviv rally of thousands of Ethiopian Israelis against alleged police brutality and institutionalised discrimination turned violent Sunday as clashes erupted between protesters and police, an AFP correspondent said.

Mounted police used riot dispersal methods to prevent groups of demonstrators from storming the Tel Aviv municipality.

Police said five officers were injured by stones and bottles hurled by protesters, one of whom was arrested.

Sunday's protest came three days after a stormy demonstration in Jerusalem sparked by footage showing two policemen beating a uniformed Israeli soldier of Ethiopian origin.

Scores of other Israelis also joined Sunday's rally, chanting and holding up signs reading: "A violent policeman must be put in prison" and "We demand equal rights".

As they marched central Tel Aviv, some held their arms in the air, wrists crossed as if handcuffed.

Demonstrators had blocked the Ayalon expressway for a long time during rush-hour, causing huge traffic jams on one of the country's central highways before police forcefully evacuated them.

Protesters then walked to the Tel Aviv municipality, where they clashed with police.

"Being black, I have to protest today," 34-year-old Eddie Maconen told AFP before the clashes broke out.

"I never experienced police violence against me personally, but it is aimed at my community which I have to support," he said.

Maconen, who came to the country aged three, said the protesters wanted violent policemen to be put on trial before deeper issues of social inequality were tackled.

"First the police need to be dealt with, then we'll get to all the other [official] bodies that screw over Ethiopians," he said.

Police estimated 3,000 people attended the demonstration, while media reports cited organisers as putting the number at 10,000.

Zion Cohen, an Israeli who joined the demonstration, told AFP the Ethiopians were "a hundred per cent right" to protest.

"It's a racist country and we don't accept them," he said.

As the rally began, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement saying that on Monday he would meet Damas Pakada, the soldier who was beaten, as well as other representatives of the Ethiopian community.

Police had pledged a crackdown on those members of the force who have used violence after the video footage went public.

Riyadh — Solutions will be hard to find Tuesday when Gulf monarchs hold their annual summit in a region threatened by jihadists and a war in Yemen that has raised tensions with Iran.

"You go down that list, it's very complex," Anthony Cordesman, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said of the challenges facing leaders of the oil-and gas-rich region.

The six Sunni-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council states will gather in the Saudi capital, still worried that Shiite Iran might be able to develop an atomic bomb.

Their concerns persist despite assurances from Washington and Paris that an international accord being drafted aims to prevent that.

A framework agreement between Tehran and the United States, France and other major powers limits Iran's nuclear capabilities in return for a lifting of international sanctions.

French President Francois Hollande will attend the GCC summit, making him the first Western leader to do so since the bloc's creation in 1981.

The visit will reinforce a deepening of Saudi ties with major powers beyond the United States.

Hollande will join rulers from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

They will gather just over a week before the Gulf leaders travel to traditional ally Washington. President Barack Obama called that meeting in a bid to allay their fears over any US rapprochement with Iran, and to brainstorm on reducing regional conflicts.

Most Gulf states support a US-led coalition bombing jihadists from Daesh terror group in Syria and Iraq since last year.

Daesh has seized swathes of territory in the two countries, and has threatened Saudi Arabia.

Last month the kingdom said nearly 100 jihadists, mostly linked to Daesh, have been arrested and several plots foiled, including one against the US embassy.

Riyadh organised its own coalition this year in an effort to stop the advance of Iran-backed Shiite rebels in neighbouring Yemen.

But pro- and anti-government forces continue battling in Yemen’s second city of Aden, aid groups warn over the humanitarian situation, and Al Qaeda has seized territory in the resulting chaos.

Riyadh feared the Houthi rebels would take over all of Yemen and move it into Iran’s orbit.

Oman is the only Gulf state outside of the coalition which has bombed the rebels daily since March 26 to support the exiled government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Rhetoric versus reality 

“All of these are issues where... any given meeting makes progress but it doesn’t reach solutions,” Cordesman told AFP, questioning the degree to which GCC members cooperate with each other.

“The problem often is the rhetoric is good, the reality isn’t.”

The GCC was founded to more deeply integrate the Gulf countries.

The Saudi regime will be under scrutiny at the summit six days after King Salman announced a new heir and made a son second in line to rule.

The appointments of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, 55, and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, in his early 30s, confirmed a shift to the next generation of leadership.

Riyadh and Tehran are rivals for regional influence.

They were already divided over Syria, where Saudi Arabia backs Sunni-led rebels and Iran supports President Bashar Assad’s regime, but the war in Yemen has worsened relations.

Iran has dismissed as “utter lies” accusations that it armed the Houthis, although a UN panel of experts found a longstanding “pattern of arms shipments to Yemen by sea”.

The Saudi-led coalition has imposed an air and sea blockade of Yemen, but Iran has sent warships to nearby waters.

Tehran’s navy says two of its destroyers have reached the Bab Al Mandab strait between Yemen and Djibouti to protect Iranian commercial vessels.

US naval forces have also begun “accompanying” American-flagged commercial ships traversing the strategic Strait of Hormuz between Oman and Iran, after Iran seized a cargo vessel.

On Thursday, Gulf foreign ministers rejected holding talks on neutral ground between Yemen’s rival political forces, as sought by Tehran.

They said the GCC should host talks in Riyadh.

Cordesman said Yemen’s fundamental problems, including ethnic and tribal divisions, have not been properly addressed by the Gulf.

“You can’t bomb your way into Yemeni unity,” he said.

“You have a strategy that’s maybe achieving a very narrow goal, but Yemen was a failed state before the bombing and Yemen will be a failed state after the bombing unless you can address those other issues.”

ADEN — The Saudi-led coalition battling rebels in Yemen sent a "limited" force to the city of Aden Sunday, Yemeni sources said, in what would be its first ground deployment inside the country.

A spokesman for the coalition denied that a major ground force has landed, refusing to comment on "ongoing operations".

But Yemeni government and militia forces said several dozen troops had landed in the main southern city, with some sources saying they were to assist in fighting for its international airport.

An AFP journalist saw several men in the vicinity of the airport dressed in military-style clothing, wearing helmets and carrying sophisticated weaponry.

"A limited coalition force entered Aden and another force is on its way" to the port city, a Yemeni government official there told AFP, requesting anonymity.

The coalition launched air strikes against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and their allies on March 26 after they seized control of large parts of the country and advanced on Aden, where President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi had taken refuge.

Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia and the Houthis — who have joined forces with army units loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh — have refused to concede territory or down arms despite international pressure.

Fighting for airport 

A leading member of the so-called “popular committees” militia supporting Hadi told AFP the newly deployed troops “will start helping us in fighting the Houthis and Saleh’s forces”.

The troops will mainly back pro-Hadi fighters around the rebel-held airport, which has changed hands several times and was the focus of heavy fighting overnight, he said.

Other militia commanders confirmed that a few dozen coalition soldiers, mostly Saudis and Emiratis of Yemeni origin, were on the ground in Aden.

One militia source said some 30 soldiers from coalition countries had deployed to “supervise” operations to retake the airport.

Coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Assiri denied a major ground force had landed in Aden.

“I can assure you that no [coalition] forces disembarked on the ground in Aden today,” he told Saudi Al Ekhbariya news channel.

But in comments to Doha-based Al Jazeera news channel, Assiri said that “all options are open”.

“The coalition leadership will not spare any effort to support the resistance and achieve positive results on the ground,” Assiri said.

On Sunday, coalition warplanes pounded rebel positions in and around the airport as clashes raged on, said a pro-Hadi military official.

The coalition declared an end to its Operation Decisive Storm air strikes on April 21, saying the campaign would enter a new phase dubbed Renewal of Hope focused on political efforts, aid deliveries and “fighting terrorism”.

But air strikes have continued and the coalition has faced increasing criticism for its campaign.

At least 1,200 people have been killed in Yemen since late March and thousands more have been wounded.

Accusations of cluster bombs 

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Sunday accused the coalition of using US-supplied cluster bombs in its operation, warning of the long-term danger to civilians.

The widely banned bombs contain dozens of submunitions, which sometimes do not explode, becoming de facto landmines that can kill or maim long after being dropped.

HRW said it had gathered photographs, video and other evidence indicating that cluster munitions had been used in air strikes against the Houthi rebel stronghold of Saada province in Yemen’s northern mountains in recent weeks.

Cluster munitions are prohibited by a 2008 treaty adopted by 116 countries, but not by Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners or the United States.

“Saudi-led cluster munition air strikes have been hitting areas near villages, putting local people in danger,” said HRW arms director Steve Goose.

“Saudi Arabia and other coalition members — and the supplier, the US — are flouting the global standard that rejects cluster munitions because of their long-term threat to civilians.”

Saudi Arabia denied it was using cluster munitions earlier in the campaign.

HRW said munitions used in Yemen appeared to be the CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons manufactured by the Textron Systems Corporation and supplied to both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates by the United States in recent years.

Countries that have joined the coalition include the Gulf Arab monarchies, Egypt, Sudan and Morocco.

Moroccan King Mohammed VI visited Saudi Arabia Sunday and discussed “regional and international developments” with King Salman, the official SPA news agency reported.