The Saudi-led military coalition ordered its agents to clean the remaining heavy weapons from war fronts around Ma'rib, including American armored vehicles, Lebanon's al-Akbar newspaper reported on Friday.

Over the past few weeks, Ma’rib has been the scene of large-scale operations by the Yemeni troops and allied Popular Committees fighters, who are pushing against the Saudi-led mercenaries and militants loyal to Yemen's former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

The battle for Ma’rib likely will determine the outline of any political settlement in Yemen’s second war since the 1990s. If seized by the Houthis, the resistance group can press that advantage in negotiations and even continue further south. If held, Yemen’s fugitive government saves perhaps its only stronghold as secessionists challenge its authority elsewhere.

Losing Ma’rib would be "the final bullet in the head of the internationally recognized government,” said Abdulghani al-Iryani, a senior researcher at the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies. "You’re looking at a generation of instability and humanitarian crisis. You also will look at a free-for-all theater for regional meddling.”

‘Aggressors looking for escape from Yemen quagmire’
 
Meanwhile, Yemeni Defense Minister in the National Salvation Government, Major General Muhammad Nasser al-Atifi, says Saudi Arabia and its allies involved in the ongoing war on country are searching for ways to get out of the Yemen quagmire.

“The coalition of aggression member states are going through miserable conditions, and are now looking for a way out of the Yemen quagmire,” Atifi said in an exclusive interview with Yemen’s al-Masirah television network on Friday.

“We have the information and coordinates that give us the opportunity to vigorously challenge the coalition of aggression, and to enrage Riyadh, Washington, London, Paris and Tel Aviv. They will find nothing other than a retaliatory attack as long as their aggression persists.”

The high-ranking Yemeni military official pointed out that the Saudi-led military alliance does not want to concede defeat in its campaign against Yemen, noting that those who dragged the Riyadh regime and its allies into the aggression are now looking for their escape in a face-saving manner.

Saudi Arabia, backed by the U.S. and its other regional allies, launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of Yemen's former president back to power and crushing the popular Ansarullah movement. 

The Yemeni armed forces and allied Popular Committees have, however, gone from strength to strength against the Saudi-led invaders, and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the country.

The Saudi-led military aggression has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead, and displaced millions of people.

It also destroyed Yemen's infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases across the country.