ADEN // The new governor of Aden on Wednesday thanked the UAE for its role in driving out Houthi rebels and restoring stability to the city.

Nayef Al Bakri said the rebels had committed heinous crimes against civilians, but life was now returning to normal and people were back on the beaches and in the markets.

The UAE has played a key role in Operation Restoring Hope, the Saudi-led campaign launched in April to continue driving out the Iranian-backed rebels and restore the internationally backed government of the exiled president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi. Three Emirati soldiers have lost their lives in the operation.

The Houthis and renegade army units loyal to the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh were forced out of Aden last week. Mr Al Bakri, head of Yemen’s resistance council and a former deputy governor, returned to the city as governor along with several previously exiled Hadi government ministers.

A technical team from the UAE repaired the tower and passenger terminal at Aden international airport, which had been heavily damaged in clashes before the rebels were driven out, and the first aid ship to dock in Aden for four months arrived from the UAE with 2,315 tonnes of humanitarian aid.

The Houthis would not be returning, Mr Al Bakri said, and he urged Yemenis who had fled Aden to come back and participate in its reconstruction.

In Riyadh, Mr Hadi’s exiled government issued an order for Popular Resistance militia units fighting alongside loyalist troops against the rebels to be merged into the armed forces.

The supreme defence council, chaired by Mr Hadi, said the decision was a reward for their “brave contribution to defending the homeland”.

The loyalists pushed back rebels in Lahoum, on Aden’s northern outskirts, following heavy fighting in which 12 rebels were killed.

The area lies on the road to Lahj, where loyalists have been tightening the noose on rebels with the aim of recapturing the strategic Al Anad airbase.

Saudi-led air strikes hit Houthi targets near the base, as well as in the town of Dhalea and in Saada province in the north.

In the central city of Taiz, 10 Houthi fighters and five loyalist soldiers were killed in fighting.

Violence also continued in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, which is still occupied by the rebels. Three people died and seven were injured when ISIL extremists detonated a car bomb outside an Ismaili Shiite mosque in an eastern area of the city.

The extremists said the attack on Al Faydh Alhatemy mosque in Nuqum district was revenge for Ismaili support for the Houthis.

It was the second bombing in Sanaa in three days. A bomb underneath a passenger bus in the southern Dar Selm area on Sunday killed three people and injured five.

No one admitted that attack, but a number of such explosions in the city and elsewhere in Yemen in recent months have been claimed by ISIL.

Nearly 4,000 people have been killed and nearly 20,000 injured in fighting in Yemen since March.

* Wam, Reuters