The World Health Organization has been forced to halt the distribution of aid among 700,000 citizens of the northern Syrian areas currently under control of the Islamic State terrorist group, the UN humanitarian chief said.

Valerie Amos announced on Thursday that the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has also cut the aid distribution in the northern provinces of Syria, TASS informs.

The UN has doubled its estimate of Syrians living in the areas affected by the blockade – from 212,000 to 440,000 people.

The UN Security Council said in a press statement on Thursday that there is the lack of funding for providing assistance to the Syrian citizens and refugees hiding in other countries.

The Council noted that the Syria Response Plan’s appeal for $2.9 billion is only 9% funded, and the Syria Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan’s appeal for $4.5 billion is only 6% funded.

As a result, humanitarian aid agencies have reduced food rations for Syrians by 30%

According to the UN, some 12.2 million people in Syria and another 3.9 million refugees in neighboring countries need humanitarian aid.

Informed sources disclosed that Ansarullah fighters are preparing for large-scale military defense operations to strike back at Saudi Arabia’s invasion, that will include closure of the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

Iraqi troops started the final phase of an offensive to recapture Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit today, a military official said, just hours after the United States launched airstrikes on the Islamic State-held city.

The push, however, is going ahead without the country’s Iran-backed Shiite militias, which had been instrumental to the operation so far and which backed out in a protest over the U.S. action.

A militia spokesman, Mouin al-Kadhimy, said today that many of the Shiite fighters would boycott the Tikrit operation because of the “harmful” involvement of US airstrikes.

Later in the day, clashes intensified as Iraqi troops and special forces moved toward the city center, Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi told The Associated Press. Earlier Thursday, an AP reporter heard a second round of airstrikes over Tikrit.

The Islamic State group seized the Sunni city last summer during its lightning advance across northern and western Iraq. The battle for Tikrit is seen as a key step toward eventually driving the Islamic State group from Iraq’s second largest city Mosul, which is further north.

In an address late yesterday, Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Iraqi forces began the “final phase” in the Tikrit offensive but did not acknowledge that U.S.-
led coalition forces were playing a direct role. He said Iraqis, “and not anyone but you,” will claim victory against the militant group.

At Iraq’s request, the US began airstrikes on Tikrit on Wednesday in support of the stalled ground offensive, Lt Gen James L Terry, the commander of the US-led campaign to defeat the Islamic State group, said.

He said the airstrikes would “destroy ISIL strongholds with precision, thereby saving innocent Iraqi lives while minimizing” unintended damage to civilian structures. ISIL is one of the acronyms for the Islamic State group.

Warplanes attacked two districts in the northern home province of Yemen’s rebel Houthi movement around dawn Friday, tribal sources said, a day after a Saudi-led coalition began airstrikes in support of Yemen President Abd Rabbou Mansour Hadi.

The strikes hit a market in Kataf al-Bokaa in the north of Saada province, killing or wounding 15 people, they said. Shada district was also struck, they said.

Egyptian security and military officials say Saudi Arabia and Egypt will lead a ground operation in Yemen against Shiite rebels and their allies after a campaign of airstrikes to weaken them.

Three senior officials tell The Associated Press that forces would enter by land from Saudi Arabia and by sea from the Red Sea and Arabian Sea.

They said Thursday that other nations will also be involved.

They would not specify troop numbers or say when the operation would start, only that it would be after airstrikes weaken the rebels and allied forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

They say the offensive aims to push the rebels into negotiations on power sharing. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.