Aden faces three-way assault

SANAA (AFP) - Northern troops loyal to Yemen's President, Ali Abdallah Saleh, were closing in on the southern stronghold of Aden in a three- pronged assault yesterday.

A northern military spokesman, Colonel Ali al-Jaifi, said his al-Amaliqa (Giants) brigade had broken through southern defences in the Abyan region, east of the city.

An artillery battle also raged on the northern front. President Saleh's troops pushed forward 2 miles towards the key southern military base of al-Anad, an officer at the base acknowledged. With the net closing on the port city, fighting was also under way on the third front at Kharaz, near the Bab al-Mandeb, a gateway to the Red Sea.

In the absence of casualty figures from either side in the 11-day-old civil war, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said at least 175 Somalis had died in a refugee camp near Aden at the start of the war.