Region

UNITED NATIONS — The UN chief appointed a new special envoy to Yemen as pressure grows to return to peace talks while fighting continues in the Arab world's poorest country.

A statement Saturday says Ban Ki-moon has appointed Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed of Mauritania, who until now has led the UN's Ebola mission.

More than a thousand people have been killed in recent weeks after Iran-backed Shiite rebels swept through the country and a Saudi-led Sunni coalition began air strikes to drive them back. The Western-backed president fled the country as the Houthi rebels closed in, and warnings have since grown of a humanitarian crisis as food and fuel supplies run short. Shiite rebels have pressed an offensive in the south and a Saudi Arabia-led coalition intensified its air strikes less than two days after it said it was scaling back the campaign.

Ahmed replaces Jamal Benomar, who had said he was stepping down. Benomar had faced sharp criticism from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries as his recent efforts to broker peace showed little success, though for a time Yemen had been held up as a model country for its post-Arab Spring political transition.

Benomar's four years of efforts fell apart amid the Houthi rebel uprising and the air strike response, which has led to fears of a kind of proxy war between Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies and Iran, a Shiite power that has supported the Houthis.

Yemen's UN ambassador, Khaled Alyemany, told the AP earlier this month that Benomar had not paid enough attention to the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, Yemen's internationally recognised leader, and "had started to promote the Houthis, and we cannot accept that”. At the time, Benomar did not comment.

Alyemany called Ahmed "a very good UN diplomat and expert."

Ahmed has experience in Yemen, previously serving as humanitarian coordinator there.

An additional concern in Yemen is the growing presence of the Daesh terror group. Analysts fear the group is taking advantage of Yemen's chaos to expand there.

The head of UN operations in Yemen said in an interview with The Associated Press this week that a renewal of peace talks is "inevitable", and behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts could bring results in the coming weeks.

The UN Security Council recently imposed an arms embargo on Houthi leaders and again demanded that they withdraw and stop the violence. The council also imposed an arms embargo on former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had stepped down in early 2012 as part of the UN-guided transition and now has aligned himself with the Houthis.

The Gulf Cooperation Council — which includes Yemen's neighbors Saudi Arabia and Oman as well as Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — put together the plan for a political transition in Yemen that was only partially carried out.

BEIRUT — Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate and its allies seized the last major government-held city in Idlib province on Saturday, in a blow that could expose the regime's coastal heartland to rebel attack.

The capture of Jisr Al Shughur in the northwestern province comes nearly a month after the same coalition of opposition forces, known as the "Army of Conquest", overran the provincial capital.

The city's fall opens up a strategic assault route for the rebels to neighbouring Latakia province on the Mediterranean coast, a bastion of President Bashar Assad's regime, analysts said.

"[Al Qaeda affiliate] Al Nusra Front and the Islamist brigades now have complete control of Jisr Al Shughur," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"There are some ongoing battles outside the city, to the south and east."

The Britain-based monitoring group said the bodies of at least 60 regime loyalists had been seen on the streets of the city, which was overrun by thousands of rebels.

In the wake of the capture, the observatory said government planes carried out at least 30 air strikes on and around the city.

"At least 10 people have been killed in the city in the strikes, both civilians and fighters, and dozens more are injured, with the toll expected to rise," Abdel Rahman said.

'23 prisoners executed'  

The observatory also reported that government forces summarily executed at least 23 prisoners in a detention facility before they withdrew.

State media did not acknowledge the city's fall, saying only that "units from our valiant army successfully redeployed on the outskirts of Jisr Al Shughur to avoid casualties among innocent civilians".

State news agency SANA said "aircraft bombed groups of terrorists in the Jisr Al Shughur region, and destroyed dozens of military vehicles and killed terrorists".

The jihadists hailed victory on their official Twitter account.

"The mujahedeen have entered the city centre. The city has been liberated," Al Nusra said.

One of the group's official accounts published multiple photographs of Al Nusra fighters in the city, some holding their black flag and others reciting "prayers of thanks" for the city's capture.

It also published a photo of some of the prisoners reportedly executed by government forces, showing at least 14 bodies, some piled on top of one another, in a room with blood-smeared walls.

Jisr Al Shughur became the regime's de facto provincial capital after the Army of Conquest coalition overran Idlib city last month.

With the loss of Jisr Al Shughur, the regime holds only a few areas in the east of the province, including the town of Ariha, a military base in Al Mastumah and an air base at Abu Duhur.

Assad heartland exposed 

But an activist from Idlib told AFP that both Ariha and Al Mastumah base were now under rebel siege, along with another military base called Al Qarmid.

While last month's capture of Idlib city was hailed by many in the opposition because it was only the second provincial capital entirely lost by the regime, the seizure of Jisr Al Shughur may prove to be strategically more important.

"This city is more important than Idlib city because it is close to Latakia province and regions controlled by the regime in the northeast part of Hama province," Abdel Rahman said.

It lies on the road leading to the regime's Latakia bastion, and is also close to the border with Turkey, which is a leading backer of the uprising against Assad.

"For the opposition as a whole, it would open up the route into Latakia from Idlib and Hama, which could significantly enhance any future offensive on Latakia," said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at Brookings Doha Centre and a Syria specialist.

"That would be very dangerous for the regime."

He said the capture could also pose a new threat to the regime in neighbouring Aleppo province, which lies to the east of Idlib.

"At the end of the day, this needs to be seen as more than just an offensive on Jisr Al Shughur, there's a much bigger strategy playing out."

RIYADH — Two Saudi men operating under orders from members of Daesh terror group in Syria are suspected of being behind the killing of two policemen in the capital Riyadh, the kingdom's interior ministry said Friday.

The April 8 shooting is the fifth attack believed to have been carried out by Daesh members inside the kingdom. It also brings the total number of civilians and security personnel killed in Daesh-related violence in Saudi Arabia to 15.

Saudi Arabia is taking part in US-led coalition air strikes on Daesh militants in Syria. The group has retaliated with calls for attacks inside the kingdom.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour Al Turki told a press conference that one suspect was under arrest and that the second was still at-large.

He said the suspect under arrest sent pictures of the deadly attack to Daesh members in Syria and coordinated the attack with them. Turki said Daesh militants in Syria recruited him through the Internet.

"It is upon everyone... to protect your son or daughter from such ideas, and to live with them, live among them in their daily lives, monitor them and give them advice," he said. "This is a community responsibility."

The suspect still at-large, named as Nawaf Al Enezi, is believed to be an experienced militant, Turki said. The police are offering a 1 million Saudi riyal ($267,000) reward for information that leads to his arrest.

Daesh members have previously been blamed for an attack on Saudi border guards near Iraq that killed three security personnel in January and a shooting of Shiite worshippers in Al Ahsa in the Eastern Province in November that killed eight people.

Two police officers died in raids that led to the arrests of suspects behind Al Ahsa shooting.

Hebron, Palestinian Territories — Israeli security forces on Saturday shot dead a Palestinian man who stabbed an officer in the West Bank hours after a knife-wielding teenager was killed at an East Jerusalem checkpoint.

The two incidents are the latest in a spate of apparent lone wolf attacks by Palestinians targeting Israeli civilians and security personnel since last October.

In Hebron in the south of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, an Israeli officer shot dead a Palestinian man who was stabbing a colleague at a checkpoint near the Tomb of Patriarchs, or Ibrahimi Mosque as it is known to Muslims, security forces said.

Spokeswoman Luba Samri said the security officer was in moderate condition with stab wounds to the head and chest.

The 20-year-old suspected assailant, named by Palestinian media as Assad Al Salayma, died of his injuries en route to hospital in Jerusalem.

An AFP correspondent said Israeli soldiers prevented Palestinians from gaining access to the area after the attack.

Just before midnight on Friday, Israeli forces shot dead a 17-year-old Palestinian who tried to stab their colleagues at a checkpoint in occupied Arab East Jerusalem, Samri said.

The youth from Al Tur neighbourhood, identified by Palestinian activists as Ali Al Ghannam, managed to get past one checkpoint but was brought down at a second near Al Zaim after charging it armed with a cleaver.

There were no police casualties.

Israeli forces distributed a photograph of a knife and cleaver they said the suspect had been carrying.

Jerusalem security commander Moshe Edri said the “determined actions” of security forces at the two checkpoints “saved lives”.

Al Zaim checkpoint, where the suspect was shot dead shortly before midnight (2100 GMT Friday), lies on the main highway east from Jerusalem.

East Jerusalem clashes 

Clashes broke out in Ghannam’s home neighbourhood on Saturday as young Palestinians in Al Tur protested against his killing.

Dozens of protesters threw stones and rolled burning tyres at Israeli security forces, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, an AFP correspondent reported.

More than 25 Palestinians were taken for medical treatment, the correspondent said.

Samri said one officer had suffered minor injuries from a stone to the face and police had used “riot dispersal means” to quell the protest.

She told AFP no arrests were made.

Palestinians in east Jerusalem declared a general strike.

A Palestinian information centre said that security forces were refusing to release Ghannam’s body for burial unless the family agreed to restrictions on the number of mourners.

The boy’s father rejected the Israeli terms, the Silwan information centre said on its Facebook page.

Israel routinely places restrictions on the funerals of Palestinians killed in suspected political violence in a bid to prevent them becoming the focus of protests.

There was no immediate claim of involvement by any Palestinian group in Ghannam’s actions and he had no known affiliations.

Tensions have been running high in and around Jerusalem since the killings of Israeli and Palestinian captives in tit-for-tat kidnappings by Palestinian militants and Jewish extremists last summer.

Earlier this month, an Israeli man was killed and a woman seriously hurt when a Palestinian driver deliberately rammed his car into a bus stop.

BAGHDAD — Iraq's health ministry does not have DNA test results from a close relative of Izzat Al Duri that could determine whether Saddam Hussein's long-fugitive deputy has been killed, a spokesman said Friday.

"The ministry does not have any DNA test [results] for any relative of Duri at the present time," ministry spokesman Dr Ziyad Tareq told AFP.

Tareq said such results are necessary if DNA testing is to be able to positively identify a man killed a week ago by pro-government forces as Duri.

For years, Duri has been the most senior member of Saddam's regime still at large.

Killing him would be a major victory for Baghdad, but Duri has previously been reported dead or captured only to resurface in subsequent audio or video messages.

Ketaeb Hizbollah — one of the most powerful pro-government militias in Iraq — transferred the body of the man, who bears some resemblance to Duri, to the government amid tight security on Monday.

The group's spokesman, Jaafar Husseini, told AFP that two men captured by Ketaeb Hizbollah who had seen Duri in the past six months said the dead man was him, but that account could not be independently confirmed.

Husseini said the man was killed near the town of Al Alam north of Baghdad and his body was later transferred to the paramilitary group.

That squared with an account from Omar Abdullah Al Jbara, a leader in the local forces from Al Alam, who said volunteers and police clashed with a group of men on April 17, killing 12, including one who resembled Duri.

The Army of the Men of the Naqshbandiyah Order — known by its Arabic initials JRTN and believed to be close to Duri — took part in a sweeping militant offensive that overran large areas north and west of Baghdad last June.

But little has been heard from JRTN and other groups since, with the Daesh jihadist group, which led the drive, dominating the conquered territory.

Senior members of Saddam's Baath party, to which Duri belonged, have also reportedly played a major role in Daesh terror group itself.

CAIRO — Egypt said on Saturday it had extended by three months a state of emergency imposed on parts of northern Sinai in October after Islamist militants stepped up attacks in the peninsula bordering Israel, Gaza and the Suez Canal.

Insurgents have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen in Sinai since mid-2013, lashing out after then-army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi following protests. Sisi went on to be elected president last year.

The decision, announced in a statement from the presidency, will be implemented in Rafah, Al Arish, Sheikh Zuweid and surrounding areas starting on Sunday. It also extends a night-time curfew in place in the same areas.

The measure was first introduced after 33 security personnel were killed in an attack in late October at a checkpoint in northern Sinai. It was extended for another three months in January.

The attack was claimed by Sinai Province, an affiliate of Daesh terror group, which earlier changed its name from Ansar Bayt Al Maqdis. The group, which aims to topple the government in Cairo, has mainly focused on targets in Sinai.

The destruction of tunnels into the Gaza Strip and the creation of a security buffer zone in northern Sinai last year has stoked resentment among residents, who say they rely on the smuggling trade through the tunnels and complain of neglect by the state.

BEIRUT/AMMAN — Rustom Ghazali, Syria's last chief of intelligence in Lebanon who was a suspect in the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, has died in Damascus, Lebanese media reported.

A Lebanese source with ties to Damascus also said that Ghazali had died on Friday. The cause and circumstances of his death were not immediately clear. There was no mention of his death on state media and the Syrian government made no statement.

Ghazali, in his 60s, succeeded Ghazi Kanaan as head of military intelligence in Lebanon in 2002 during Syria's tutelage over Lebanon, which lasted until Damascus pulled its troops from the country in 2005.

He was one of Syria's key operatives in Lebanon when Damascus was the country's main power broker and deeply involved in internal political affairs after the end of civil war in 1990.

Lebanon's ties with Syria hit rock bottom after the assassination of Hariri in 2005 and accusations of Syrian involvement, which Damascus has always denied.

Demonstrations in Lebanon over the killing of Hariri forced Syria to withdraw its 15,000 soldiers in April of that year, ending three decades of military presence in its smaller neighbour.

UN investigators questioned Ghazali in September 2005 as a suspect in the Hariri killing. He was widely believed to be on the list of people to be brought to the tribunal to testify in the coming months.

Opposition reports say he had been dismissed over his alleged opposition to the prominent role played by Lebanese Shiite group Hizbollah and Iran in the Syrian offensive to wrest back large parts of southern Syria from rebel hands.

Several sources said that Ghazali had a fallout with the powerful head of Military Intelligence Rafik Shehadeh.

Ghazali was born in 1952 in the village of Qarfa in Syria's Deraa province. He was appointed in 2002 as head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon replacing Ghazi Kanaan, who was made interior minister. In 2005, Kanaan was found dead on his desk. The authorities said he committed suicide.

Ghazali was appointed head of political intelligence in 2012 shortly after a powerful blast killed and injured a number of top military and security officials.

UNITED NATIONS — Actress Angelina Jolie pleaded with world powers Friday to help the millions of Syrian refugees, sharply criticising the UN Security Council for being paralysed by its division over Syria's four-year conflict.

Jolie briefed the council as special envoy for the UN on refugee issues. Syria's ambassador said simply of her presence, "She's beautiful".

Jolie spoke during a full day of briefings on Syria that also included details of a new series of talks next month in Geneva aimed at finding a political solution to the crisis. The UN humanitarian chief made a powerful call for sanctions against those blocking the delivery of aid.

Nearly 4 million Syrians have fled the conflict into neighbouring countries, which warn they are dangerously overstretched.

"We cannot look at Syria, and the evil that has arisen from the ashes of indecision, and think this is not the lowest point in the world's inability to protect and defend the innocent," Jolie said.

Jolie, who said she has made 11 visits to Syrian refugees in the region since the crisis began in 2011, called strongly for the political will to act. She said the council's powers lie unused because its members cannot agree on how to address the conflict.

Russia, a top Syria ally and backed by China, has vetoed multiple council resolutions on Syria, including an effort last year to refer the situation there to the International Criminal Court. British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, in his final council meeting, urged his colleagues to try again and said his "greatest regret" in his post was their collective failure to end the conflict.

Jolie said she would like to see the foreign minister of each of the 15 council members come to the table to negotiate a political solution. She also urged council members to visit Syrian refugees and see the crisis for themselves.

In addition, Jolie spoke briefly about the rising migrant crisis on the Mediterranean, where more than 1,300 migrants fleeing Syria and other places have drowned at sea over the past three weeks.

"It is sickening to see thousands of refugees drowning on the doorstep of the world's wealthiest continent," she said. "No one risks the lives of their children in this way except out of utter desperation."

The world continues to struggle to find a political solution to the conflict, and the UN special envoy to Syria warned council members that the talks in Geneva next month should not be seen as negotiations.

Staffan de Mistura said he intends to meet separately with a range of parties if they are ready to move on to negotiations, and he will report results to the UN chief by the end of June. The envoy ruled out including the Islamic State group in the talks.

A UN diplomat for key Syria ally Iran indicated it would be happy to attend as long as there are no preconditions. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly.

Meanwhile, the UN's outgoing humanitarian coordinator, Valerie Amos, challenged the divided council to mandate a fact-finding mission into the roughly 440,000 Syrians who are besieged in Syria and risk death by starvation, dehydration and the lack of medical care.

"The government, armed and terrorist groups continue to kill, maim, rape, torture and take Syria to new lows that seemed unimaginable a few years ago," she said.

The council should mandate the negotiation of humanitarian pauses to allow the delivery of aid, Amos said, and it should enforce an arms embargo and sanctions for the "shocking lack of respect for the most basic rules of international humanitarian law", including intentional blockage of aid.

US Ambassador Samantha Power told the council that existing resolutions on the crisis "are currently being ridiculed by the Syrian regime".

The UN refugee chief, Antonio Guterres, told the council that 14 million people are now displaced in the "interlinked crises" in Syria and Iraq, where Daesh terror group seized territory in the past year.

He called for "massively increased support" for Syria's neighbours under the flood of refugees, pointing out that as Lebanon and Jordan are considered middle-income countries, the World Bank can't give them grants for efforts to deal with the "severe demographic shock they have endured".

CAIRO — Libya's chaos has turned it into a lucrative magnet attracting migrants desperate to make the dangerous sea voyage to Europe. With no central authority to stop it, business is booming, with smugglers charging ever more as demand goes up, then using the profits to buy larger boats and heavier weapons to ensure no one dare touch them.

It's a vicious cycle that only translates into more tragedies at sea.

With each rickety boat that sets off from Libya's coast, traffickers rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars. So assured are they of their impunity that they operate openly. Many even use Facebook to advertise their services to migrants desperate to flee war, repression and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

And they are armed to the teeth, often working with powerful militias in Libya that control territory and hold political power.

One coast guard officer in Sabratha, a Libyan coastal city that is a main launch point for smugglers' boats headed to Europe, said his small force can do little to stop them. Recently, he heard about a vessel about to leave but refused to send his men to halt it.

"This would be suicidal," he told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the powerful traffickers.

"When you see smugglers with anti-aircraft guns mounted on pickup trucks on the beach, and you have an automatic rifle, what are you going to do?"

If any one factor explains the dramatic jump in illegal crossings into Europe, it's Libya's turmoil since the 2011 civil war that ousted longtime dictator Muammar Qadhafi. As the boat traffic increases, so do the horrific disasters. Over the weekend, a ship packed with migrants capsized off Libya, leaving at least 800 dead, the deadliest shipwreck ever in the Mediterranean. At least 1,300 people have died in the past three weeks alone, putting 2015 on track to be the deadliest year ever.

During his rule, Qadhafi struck deals with Europe to police the traffic, helping to keep the numbers down. In 2010, some 4,500 migrants made the perilous crossing from North Africa to Italy, the vast majority departing from Libya, according to the EU border agency Frontex.

In 2014, that number spiraled to more than 170,000.

By comparison, just under 51,000 took the second-most-popular smuggler route into Europe in 2014 — from Turkey into Greece and the Balkans. That was about the same as in 2008.

European authorities have been scrambling to find ways to deal with the crisis. One proposal is to fund camps in countries bordering Libya to house migrants before they reach its coast. Italian Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti said Wednesday there are contingency plans for military intervention against smugglers in Libya and that Italy is willing to lead an operation if it gets UN backing.

In the past year, Libya’s crumbling into anarchy has only accelerated. The country was plagued by multiple armed militias since Qadhafi’s ouster and death, but since 2014 what little political structure Libya had has collapsed. There are two rival governments, neither with any real authority, and each fighting the other on the ground. Local militias hold sway around the country, some of them with hard-line Islamist ideologies.

Daesh has emerged as a strong and brutal force, with control of at least two cities along the central and eastern parts of the Mediterranean coast and a presence in many others. Over the weekend, it issued a video showing the mass beheading of dozens of African migrants, mostly Ethiopian and Eritrean Christians who were abducted as they tried to make it to the coast.

In the chaos, smuggling has “become an organised crime, with cross border mafias in possession of weapons, information and technology,” said the head of an independent agency that studies human trafficking and tries to help migrants in Sabratha.

Extensive cross-border smuggling networks organise different legs of the journey: First from the migrants’ home country to the Libyan border, then from the border to a jumping-off point on the coast, then onto boats for the Mediterranean crossing.

“We call the Mediterranean Sea ‘the graveyard’,” said the agency director, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from smugglers.

Along the way, traffickers strike deals with local militias to turn a blind eye to their movements. For example, smugglers bringing Africans across Libya’s southern border pay off the ethnic Tabu militia nominally tasked by the Libyan government to patrol the border, he said.

Smugglers have also raised prices, he said. Some have bought larger fishing trawlers that are ostensibly somewhat safer and can carry hundreds more migrants — and they charge up to 3,000 euros ($3,200) per person. They use the funds to buy weapons and technology — including satellite phones, GPS systems and 4-wheel drive vehicles to move across the desert.

Migrants pay for each leg of the journey. It costs around $1,000 to get to Libya from Senegal and around $2,500 from Ethiopia, according to migration experts in those countries. But prices can vary. Italian prosecutor Maurizio Scalia, who investigates human trafficking, said the price from Ethiopia can reach as high as $5,000.

The cost for the trip across the Mediterranean depends on the type of boat and, on better vessels, which part of it the migrant is crammed into — the top deck or down below, according to several smugglers who spoke to the AP. They were reached through the Facebook pages where they advertise and gave only their first names for fear of prosecution by authorities in Tripoli.

A place on an inflatable boat — a more treacherous journey — can run $500, while relatively sturdier wooden or steel boats run from $1,000 to $2,000, said one smuggler, Luqman, in the city of Zwara, another main launching point.

Mohammed, another smuggler in Zwara, said he runs boats to Italy — 15-metre wooden boats with a capacity of 200 people, or 18-meter ones with a capacity of 280. He insisted none of his boats have sunk, saying the danger was when smugglers overload their vessels, as they often do, sometimes to well over double capacity.

Each leg of the trip must be paid in advance. Migrants often scrounge together the money in their home country for the first leg, then stay for weeks in Libya working informal jobs to earn the money for the boat trip.

Scalia, the Italian prosecutor, said migrants’ families in Europe often help by sending funds through an underground money transfer system known as “hawala” that avoids the traditional — and traceable — banking sector. The system runs on networks of agents working on an informal honour system to process the cash payments.

In March, the European police agency Europol formed a task force to gather information from national law enforcement agencies in Europe to map out the criminal groups organising the migrant influx, Europol spokesman Soeren Kragh Pedersen told the AP.

While sub-Saharan Africans are smuggled across the southern borders into Libya, Syrians, who make up a significant proportion of the traffic, usually come via Algeria, since they can fly there and enter without a visa, the smugglers said.

Luqman outlined the path his network uses: A migrant arrives at the airport in Algeria, then is taken by car to a border area called Tebessa, where the smugglers arrange the crossing into Tunisia. Then it’s a 400-kilometre journey along desert roads to the port of Zwara in Libya. Along the way, migrants may have to stay for days in a safehouse waiting for enough other migrants to arrive to make the journey, he said.

“The people who help the migrants cross from one country to the other don’t deal with small numbers but big numbers. So migrants can wait in one country for a couple of days or a week until the number is enough,” Luqman said.

SANAA — Saudi-led warplanes launched new deadly strikes in Yemen on Thursday despite a demand by Iran-backed rebels for a complete halt to the raids as a condition for UN-sponsored peace talks.

The Saudi-led coalition declared an end to the first phase of its operations against the Houthi Shiite rebels and their allies, but vowed to keep hitting them with targeted bombing when necessary.

And two days on from the announcement, a new wave of strikes killed at least 23 rebels as the World Health Organisation said the overall death toll from fighting in Yemen since late March topped 1,000.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced plans to appoint Mauritanian diplomat Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed as his new envoy to the country.

Cheikh Ahmed replaces Morocco’s Jamal Benomar, who resigned last week after losing support for his mediation efforts from oil-rich Gulf countries.

Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched the air war on March 26 in an attempt to restore the authority of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who was forced to flee abroad last month as the rebels swept across the country.

After the end of Operation Storm of Resolve, the coalition said the campaign would enter a phase dubbed Renewal of Hope focusing on political efforts, aid deliveries and “fighting terrorism”.

But the Saudi ambassador to the US, Adel Al Jubeir, has since warned that “the Houthis should be under no illusion that we will use force in order to stop them taking over Yemen by aggressive actions”.

His remarks came as US President Barack Obama called on Iran to help find a political solution in Yemen, accusing the Islamic republic of contributing to the conflict.

Rebels demand talks 

Talks on the Yemen crisis were high on the agenda as Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif headed a powerful delegation to Riyadh for meetings with King Salman and other officials.

Pakistan’s parliament has rejected a Saudi request for troops, warplanes and ships to take part in the coalition, favouring a mediating role.

The Saudi-led alliance says it has destroyed the Houthis’ missile and air capabilities, but the rebels still control Sanaa and swathes of the country while Hadi remains in self-exile in Riyadh.

The rebels have called for a complete halt to the raids so warring parties can return to the negotiating table.

“We demand, after a complete end to the aggression against Yemen and the lifting of the blockade, to resume political dialogue... under the sponsorship of the United Nations,” said spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam.

Since his remarks, however, a new wave of strikes on Thursday killed at least 23 rebels in the southern town of Daleh, a government official said. Other raids targeted them in nearby Lahj.

In Yemen’s third city of Taez, a Red Cross official said his team had retrieved the bodies of 10 loyalist troops thought to have been killed two days ago when rebels overran their base.

There were more bodies, he said, but the Houthis had denied rescuers access to the area.

The discovery came after a night of air raids in Taez that caused an unknown number of casualties, according to a medic.

A pro-Hadi military official said “heavy” air raids later struck rebel gatherings in the second city of Aden, where clashes between rebels and loyalists raged.

Three raids also hit rebels in the eastern province of Marib, and others targeted a rebel-held air base in the western city of Hodeida.

“The war is not over” but “there are several attempts to find a political solution,” said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, political science professor at the University of the Emirates.

Death toll tops 1,000 

On Thursday, strikes also targeted Yarim in Ibb province, where warplanes hit an old university building used as a rebel headquarters, residents said.

A newly announced division of the Daesh jihadist group — the “Green Brigade” — also claimed a bombing in Yarim the day before that it said had killed five rebels.

In Lahj and Daleh, raids flattened five rebel positions in schools and public buildings, pro-Hadi fighters said.

In Aden, warplanes hit rebel positions and clashes ensued between pro- and anti-Hadi forces, witnesses said.

The WHO now says at least 1,000 people have been killed in Yemen between March 19 and April 20.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said it was providing the International Medical Corps with $800,000 to deliver emergency relief to Yemen, after the Red Cross warned of a “catastrophic” humanitarian situation.

In Nairobi, Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke warned the conflict posed dangers across the Gulf of Aden where an influx of refugees is stretching scarce resources and Al Qaeda is eager for support.