Saudi-backed Yemeni officials say pro-government forces have retaken the last military base in the country's south that was held by Houthi rebels. The officials say Friday's capture of Labouza base is the latest victory for the pro-government forces that have been pushing north in the province of Lahej, after routing the rebels from the city of Aden recently. Labouza lies north of the strategic Al-Anad base, which fell to Yemeni troops Monday. The officials gave no casualty figures for the latest fighting. They spoke on condition of anonymity under regulations. The gains by the pro-government forces have been made possible with the help of a Saudi-led and U.S.-backed coalition that has been targeting the Iran-backed Houthis and their allies since March in an airstrikes campaign. Meanwhile, Turkey has frozen the assets of officials from Yemen's former regime including ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh, along with Houthi rebel leaders, the official Anatolia news agency reported. The move by Ankara followed U.N. Security Council sanctions on the same five men for threatening peace in the impoverished, conflict-torn country. The decision, which was published in the Official Gazette having been endorsed by the Cabinet, blacklists Saleh, his son Ahmad Ali Abdullah Saleh and Houthi leaders Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, Abdullah Yahya al-Hakim and Abdel-Khaliq al-Houthi, the agency said. The sanctions freeze any assets, bank accounts and safe deposit boxes the five might have in Turkey and will be in place until Feb. 26, 2016, Anatolia said. Saleh, who ruled Yemen for 33 years before being forced from power in 2012 after a bloody yearlong uprising, threw the support of his loyalists in the army behind the Houthis. He was accused of aiding the Houthis to undermine U.N.-backed President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi in February. Also Friday, a Frenchwoman abducted in Yemen in February has been freed, French authorities said. Development worker Isabelle Prime and her translator Shereen Makawi were abducted by gunmen in the capital Sanaa on Feb. 24 while on their way to work. Yemeni tribal sources said in March Prime would be released, but only Makawi was freed at the time. "We have indications that her death was not far off," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on iTele television Friday. "If we had not got her out, she would be dead." Asked whether a ransom had been paid, a French official said France never gave details on either the detention or release of hostages. "I spoke to her by telephone this morning, she is doing as well as can be expected," Fabius said. "The release of Isabelle Prime shows yet again that France does not abandon its own." A statement from President Francois Hollande said: "The president wishes to thank all those who helped achieve this outcome, and in particular Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the Sultan of Oman." Neighboring Oman has often played a mediating role in hostage releases and regional diplomacy. Authorities there helped locate Prime and bring her to the Gulf Arab sultanate at dawn, official news agency ONA cited an unnamed official at the Omani Foreign Ministry as saying. In June, France authenticated a video that appeared on YouTube in May showing Prime making an appeal in English to Hollande and Hadi. "Please bring me to France fast because I'm really, really tired," she said in the video, in which she was seen crouching on sand and in distress. "I tried to kill myself several times because I know you will not cooperate and I totally understand."
