Houthis suffer first serious setback in south Yemen fighting - residents

A Houthi militant walks past a government building destroyed by a recent Saudi-led air strike in Yemen's northwestern city of Saada, May 24, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer

ADEN/CAIRO (Reuters) - Local Sunni Muslim militia ejected Shi'ite Houthi rebels from much of the southern Yemeni city of Dalea on Monday, residents and combatants said, inflicting the first significant setback on the Iranian-backed rebels in two months of civil war.

Dalea had been a bastion of southern secessionists in Yemen before the Houthis took widespread control of the city in arch, after having seized the capital Sanaa in the north in September, toppling President Abd-Rabbu Mansour, and then thrust into the centre and south of the Arabian Peninsula country.