RIYADH — Special forces troops fighting the Houthi militias in Aden were not foreign troops but Yemenis deployed there two weeks ago after retraining in Arab countries, Yemen's Foreign Minister Reyad Yassin Abdulla said on Monday. Their smart uniforms and equipment led to reports on Sunday that the coalition had sent in ground troops. “It's a group of the Yemeni forces. We retrained them and we send them to organize things,” Abdulla, part of President Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi's government, said in an interview. Abdulla said ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh still wanted to leave Yemen but that the coalition would not meet his terms, which he said included taking in hundreds of his followers and granting him a pension. “He is greedy. He is asking for a lot of money, he is asking for a lot of followers,” he told Reuters. A conference between Yemeni political groups has been scheduled by Hadi's government for May 18. However, several leading figures from Saleh's political party, the General People's Congress (GPC), have pledged loyalty to Hadi's government, Abdulla said, leaving the ousted president Saleh increasingly isolated. These include former telecom minister Ahmed bin Dagher, Bakeel tribal chief Mohammed Al-Shayef, former GPC secretary general Sultan Al-Barakani, and former Sanaa governor Abdulqader Hilal, he said. Other Saleh loyalists had also fled Yemen and abandoned the deposed president, he said, noting that Yemen's speaker of parliament Yahya Al-Rai'i had contacted Hadi to pledge his allegiance and was in hiding. General Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar, a once powerful figure in Yemen's army, is not in contact with Hadi's government, he said. Meanwhile, Hadi's government has drawn up a list of about 50 Yemeni politicians associated with Saleh whom it accuses of war crimes in the period since the Houthis seized Sanaa last year. “Those who are coming to Hadi and their hands were involved in Yemeni blood, they shouldn't think that since they came here that we will waive all their previous crimes,” Abdulla said. — Reuters
