Yemen rebels issue call to arms as U.S. pulls out State Department, military workers

ADEN, Yemen – Yemen’s Shiite rebels issued a call to arms Saturday to battle forces loyal to the country’s embattled president, as U.S. troops were evacuating a southern air base crucial to America’s drone strike program after al-Qaida militants seized a nearby city.

The turmoil comes as Yemen battles al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the target of the drone program, and faces a purported affiliate of the extremist Islamic State group that claimed responsibility for a series of suicide bombings killing at least 137 people Friday.

All these factors could push the Arab world’s most impoverished country, united only in the 1990s, back toward civil war.

“I hate to say this, but I’m hearing the loud and clear beating of the drums of war in Yemen,” Mohammed al-Basha, a spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington, D.C., wrote on Twitter.

The Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, swept into Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in September and now control it and nine of the country’s 21 provinces. President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, a one-time prisoner of the Houthis in his own home, escaped last month and installed himself in Aden, declaring it the temporary capital amid the Houthi insurrection.

Earlier Saturday, Hadi gave his first televised address since fleeing the capital, striking a defiant tone. He described the rebels’ rule as “a coup against constitutional legitimacy.” He also pledged to raise the Yemeni flag over the Maran mountains, a stronghold for the Houthis, members of the Shiite Zaydi sect that represents nearly 30 percent of Yemen’s population.

Almost immediately after Hadi’s speech, the Houthis issued a statement announcing their offensive against security and military institutions loyal to Hadi, calling it a battle against extremists.

Though seizing power in Sanaa and clashing with those protesting their power grab, the Houthis largely haven’t resorted to open warfare since beginning their campaign in September. Their statement Saturday immediately recalled the years of war fought in the country, once split between a Marxist south that once was a British colony and a northern republic.

As the threat of civil war grew, the U.N. Security Council called an emergency meeting for this afternoon to discuss the Yemen crisis. Representatives of Yemen and Qatar, which currently heads the Gulf Cooperation Council, were scheduled to speak.

Meanwhile Saturday, U.S. troops including Special Forces commandos were evacuating from the al-Annad air base in southern Yemen, Yemeni security and military officials said.

The air base, the country’s largest, was believed to have about 100 American troops stationed there.

Late Saturday, the U.S. State Department said in a statement that it “has temporarily relocated its remaining personnel out of Yemen.”

The statement gave no details about how many personnel had remained in Yemen or where they had been relocated.

On Friday, al-Qaida militants seized control of the southern provincial capital of al-Houta in the group’s most dramatic grab of territory in years. That’s near the al-Annad air base, which has been the scene of rocket attacks in the past by militants.

The al-Annad base is where American and European military advisers help Yemen battle the country’s local al-Qaida branch through drone strikes and logistical support.