RIYADH — The Saudi-led coalition has not started any major ground offensive in Yemen's port city of Aden, its spokesman said on Sunday after a Yemeni newspaper reported that an Arab force had landed in the city and was battling Houthi fighters. Brig. Gen. Ahmad Asiri, spokesperson of the coalition forces and adviser at the office of the minister of defense, told Reuters there were no non-Yemeni forces fighting in Aden, but said the coalition would continue to assist Popular Resistance fighters battling the Houthis. The fighters battling the Houthi militia around Aden airport are Yemenis, not Arab special forces troops, Ali Al-Ahmadi, spokesman for the Southern Popular Resistance, said on Sunday. Ahmadi had earlier said there were 40-50 special forces fighters from other Arab countries who had arrived in Aden to help local militia against the Houthis, but later said this was wrong. The United States said Saturday it was working to find a solution for Yemen's crisis. US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Sri Lanka it was not inevitable that Yemen would become a failed state, stressing however that Washington was working “very hard” to find a solution. “I will not say yet that the verdict is in on what Yemen is going to be because we are trying very hard, working with the UN, working with our friends in the region,” he said. “We are working hard to secure a negotiated process through the UN which will bring the parties together, Yemenites to negotiate the future of Yemen,” he said. — Agencies
