ADEN: Forces loyal to Yemen’s president said they seized strategic buildings in the southern city of Aden on Monday after a five-hour battle, escalating a civil conflict that threatens to split the country in two.

The militias supporting Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi wrested control of parts of Yemen’s economic hub including, sources said, its main power station and intelligence headquarters from security forces allied to the Houthi movement.

The country’s north is dominated by the Shiite Houthis, who completed a takeover of the capital Sanaa last month, while in the south forces loyal to Hadi and separatists seeking to restore the former South Yemen appear to be in charge.

In five hours of clashes, sources in the Popular Committees of Aden run by Hadi’s brother, Nasser, said they had also taken Aden’s television station and the administrative building of its free trade zone, with the loss of three fighters. The Popular Committees confirmed in a statement that several government buildings previously guarded by the security forces had been taken.

Aden’s governor Abdel-Aziz bin Habtour, in remarks carried on a Defense Ministry news website, said clashes had take place but denied Hadi loyalists had taken over the television station. “The situation is under control and what has happened is being dealt with,” the site quoted the governor, whose political affiliations put him closer to Hadi than to the Houthis, as saying.