Yemeni exiled president Mansour Hadi backs out of talks with Houthis rebels

President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi fled Yemen earlier this year, and his government is currently based in Saudi Arabia, which is leading a US-backed coalition that has been striking the Iran-supported rebels from the air since March.

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Yemen’s conflict pits an array of forces against the Houthi rebels, who are allied with security forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The conflict has killed more than 4,000 people, leaving the Arab world’s poorest country in the grip of a humanitarian crisis and on the brink of famine.

Several previous attempts to get the parties to end the conflict have failed, and it has proven nearly impossible to arrange a humanitarian pause to deliver desperately needed aid.

Meanwhile, mourners in the United Arab Emirates grieved over the loss of servicemen killed in a Sept. 5 missile attack in Yemen after additional bodies arrived in the federal capital, Abu Dhabi, on Saturday following their identification in Saudi Arabia.

The Emirates said a total of 52 of its soldiers — seven more than the 45 it earlier acknowledged — were killed in the Houthi rebel attack. It was the heaviest military loss for the country since it was founded in 1971. The soldiers were deployed as part of the Saudi-led coalition.