SANA, Yemen — The Saudi-led coalition targeting Shi'ite rebels in Yemen bombed insurgent positions near the Bab el-Mandeb strait Sunday to weaken them in preparation for a ground offensive there, Yemeni security officials said.
The airstrikes were confirmed by security officials close to the rebels, known as Houthis, who said 13 of their fighters were killed in the airstrikes. The attacks took place in areas Houthis control around the strategic Red Sea strait, including the port town of Mocha, which is connected by road to Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city.
A similar tactic of airstrikes preceding a ground offensive was used in other areas taken over by progovernment forces, including in the southern port city of Aden, which the Houthis lost to progovernment troops last month.
In Bayda province, progovernment forces took over the eastern part of the town of Mukayris in an operation supported by airstrikes from the Saudi-led coalition, officials said. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to brief journalists.
Yemen's conflict pits the Iran-allied Houthis and troops loyal to the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, against forces including southern separatists, local and tribal militias, Sunni Islamic militants, and troops loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
A statement carried by the UAE's official WAM news agency identified the British hostage as Robert Douglas Semple.
It said Semple, 64, had been working as a petroleum engineer in the Yemeni province of Hadramawt when he was kidnapped in February 2014. The statement did not say where Semple had been held or provide any details on the rescue.
Yemeni security officials said they were not aware of Yemeni forces assisting in the operation and did not have details about how Semple was released, suggesting his handover might have been negotiated among local tribesmen before the involvement of Emirati forces.
Al Qaeda's Yemen branch, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has been consolidating its control in Hadramawt, the country's largest province, where Semple was kidnapped. The group captured a large weapons depot, an airport, an oil terminal, and the area's main military base in April, and it controls the provincial capital, Mukalla.