Photo: Sheikh Hamood Al-Meklafi the leader of the resistance of Taize province

Loyalists retook several facilities from rebels in Taez, including police and civil defence headquarters.In a telephone call, Hadi reassured the 35th Brigade commander in the city Thursday that "Taizis on its way to being liberated and support will soon reach it."

Military sources say the coalition has provided Hadi's supporters with modern heavy equipment in recent weeks, including tanks and personnel carriers, and Yemeni soldiers trained in Saudi Arabia.

The conflict has cost nearly 4,300 lives since March, half of them civilians, according to UN figures, while 80 percent of Yemen's 21 million people need aid and protection.

Aid workers in the south told AFP aid groups from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and beyond began distributing much-needed food and other supplies to residents in Aden and nearby areas.

A Saudi plane carrying 10 tonnes of medical aid landed at Aden on Saturday, the official SPA news agency reported, adding that this was the seventh aid flight to the city since July.

Since the Saudi announced the forming of the anti-rebel coalition, it has pledged $540 million in aid to Yemen.

The five provinces so far retaken by pro-government troops, along with Mahra and Hadramawt which the rebels never entered, comprise the formerly independent South Yemen.

It was its own state from the end of British colonial rule in 1967 until its union with the north in 1990.

A secession attempt four years later sparked a brief civil war that ended with northern forces occupying the region.