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Shiite rebels 'seize city of Taiz and airport'

Shiite rebels backed by supporters of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh have taken over parts of Yemen's third largest city of Taiz and its airport.

The UN Security Council is holding an emergency meeting on Yemen's security situation.

It comes after the US announced it was withdrawing its troops from Yemen due to the worsening security situation amid mounting violence by armed rival groups including Houthi rebels, al-Qaeda and Islamic State militants.

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Yemen rebels in call for new offensive

Anti-Houthi protesters demonstrating in support of Yemen's President Credit: Reuters

Yemen's Shiite rebels have issued a call to arms to fight forces loyal to the country's president.

The development came as US troops were evacuating a southern air base crucial to America's drone strike programme after al Qaida militants seized a nearby city.

Yemen is fighting al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and facing a purported affiliate of the Islamic State group that claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings which killed at least 137 people on Friday..

All these factors could push the Arab world's most impoverished country, united only in the 1990s, back toward civil war.

"I hate to say this, but I'm hearing the loud and clear beating of the drums of war in Yemen," said Mohammed al-Basha, a spokesman for the Yemeni embassy in Washington

The United Nations Security Council will meet on Sunday on the situation in Yemen after Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi called for an "urgent intervention" by the 15-member body.

The president escaped from the capital, Sanaa last month after being imprisoned in his own home by the Houthis Shiite rebels and fled to Aden, declaring it the temporary capital.

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Shiite rebels 'seize city of Taiz and airport'

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