In Yemen, Talks and Shooting follow 6,000 Deaths

Following a year of fighting and more than 6,000 deaths, Yemen’s civil war continues to be fought on the battlefield while diplomats meeting in Kuwait seek an end to the conflict. A ceasefire that went into effect last Thursday is apparently being breached by both sides in the area of Taiz, but negotiators have managed to keep the parties at the table in Kuwait. The government of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi is demanding that before the talks get underway in earnest, the forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, fighting alongside the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthis, lay down its arms and withdraw from the cities it occupies. The attempts by the United Nations to broker a truce have apparently done nothing to interfere with attempts by both sides to add to the land it controls. On Saturday, Hadi’s forces fought the local Al-Qa’ida franchise, Al-Qa’ida of the Arabian Peninsula and killed at least 15 AQAP fighters.