...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic...
Saturday, witnesses said, as warring parties from the impoverished nation prepared for UN-sponsored talks in Geneva.
Air raids targeted Shiite Houthis in the central province of Dhamar, as well as air defence positions of allied troops loyal to former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
, witnesses said.
Rebel positions in their northern Saada stronghold were also hit, they added.
A wave of intensive overnight air strikes targeted arms depots around the capital and residences of people close to Saleh, including his brother's home, south of Sanaa, witnesses said.
Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
launched the air war on March 26, as the rebels and their allies among forces loyal to Saleh advanced on President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's refuge in the southern city of Aden.
Hadi had fled the capital, which the rebels seized unopposed in September, and was rushed to safety in Saudi Arabia as the Huthis closed in on Aden.
Clashes continued Saturday in the port city of Aden, as well as in nearby Daleh, and in the provinces of Shabwa and Abyan
...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an
Islamic Emirateafter seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues...
, where southern fighters allied with Hadi have been fighting advancing rebels.
The exiled government said its delegation flew Saturday to Geneva for the UN talks due to open on Monday.
But representatives of the Huthis and Saleh's General People's Congress refused to board a UN plane from Sanaa to Geneva Saturday because it was scheduled to stop off in Jizan, in Saudi Arabia, a Huthi official told AFP.
The delegations have asked not to travel to the kingdom, the official said, insisting that the rebels' position on participating in the talks had not changed.
The talks had been scheduled to start Sunday but the United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
said they would be delayed by a day due to "unforeseen circumstances".
UN chief
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
said the talks were aimed at securing a ceasefire, agreeing on a withdrawal plan for the Huthis and stepping up humanitarian aid deliveries.
A five-day truce last month allowed aid agencies to reach civilians caught in the fighting but UN efforts to prolong the ceasefire failed.
The World Health Organization said Friday that 2,584 people had been killed in fighting in Yemen as of June 7, with 11,065 maimed.