A senior commander of Yemeni government forces was killed at the malib front

Source: Xinhua Net

Cairo, 13 Dec (Xinhua) -- A yemeni government official said on the 13th that Nassar Tibani, the supreme military commander of government forces in malib province in the central part of the country, was killed in an exchange of fire with the Houthis on the same day.

The official, who did not want to be named, said that on the morning of the 13th, Tibani led government troops to engage in fierce fighting with the Houthis near the mountains south of Malibu City, the capital of Malibu Province, and then Houthi fighters shot and killed Tibani and a number of government soldiers.

Tibani is one of the most influential senior officers in the Yemeni government army, having commanded several major campaigns against the Houthis.

Malib Province is Yemen's main oil producer and the focus of contention between the two sides in the civil war. Since February, the Houthis have launched a fierce offensive in the province and have now occupied most of the province. Yemeni government forces, with the help of a multinational coalition led by Saudi Arabia, launched a counterattack against the Houthis. The latest figures show that the fierce fighting in Malibu has killed nearly 20,000 combatants.

In September 2014, the Houthis seized the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, and later the southern part of Yemen. In March 2015, Saudi Arabia and other countries launched a military campaign against the Houthis code-named "Decisive Storm". In December 2018, under the mediation of the United Nations, the Yemeni government and the Houthis reached an agreement on a ceasefire and a prisoner-of-war swap, but soon the two sides accused each other of undermining the ceasefire agreement.

(Editor-in-charge: Cui Yue, Liu Jieyan)