Al-Qaida frees 300 prisoners in Yemen

SANAA, Yemen – Seizing an opportunity amid the chaos, al-Qaida fighters early Thursday staged a prison break in a city in southeastern Yemen, freeing about 300 prisoners thought to include several dozen of their comrades, officials and residents said.

At the same time, the struggle for the strategic port of Aden intensified, with Shiite Muslim rebels surging into several parts of the city, briefly overrunning the palace vacated last week by internationally recognized President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, witnesses said.

The gains came despite a concerted campaign of air and naval strikes by the coalition led by Saudi Arabia, which is trying to crush the rebellion.

A Saudi military spokesman played down the Houthi rebels’ advances into Aden.

“These things are to be expected, and anyone who knows the tactics of these militias knows that their aim is creating media propaganda rather than actual military success,” Brig. Gen. Ahmed Hassan Asiri told reporters in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

The prison attack took place in the port of Mukalla, the country’s fifth-largest city, in Hadhramaut province, a stronghold of al-Qaida’s Yemeni affiliate. The largely Sunni fighters also looted the local branch of the Central Bank, security officials said, and set up roadblocks across the city.

The episode could point to a dangerous new phase in the battle between the Houthi insurgents and the Saudi-led coalition. Analysts had warned that armed groups such as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula or militants professing loyalty to the Islamic State group would probably seek to capitalize on the disorder generated by the fighting.