ADEN: Yemen’s President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi is working to restore his authority after returning from six months of exile with a vow to liberate the country from Shiite Houthi rebels.

Hadi’s first act was to chair a meeting of Cabinet members already back in the southern port city of Aden.

He instructed the ministers to focus on basic services such as water, electricity, housing, health care and security for ordinary Yemenis.

On the security front, the 70-year-old president stressed the need to integrate members of the Popular Resistance pro-government militia into the regular army, the government-run Saba news agency reported.

The president promised the Yemeni people that the Houthis, who hailed from the mountainous north, would be driven from the capital Sanaa. “The return to the capital Sanaa will come soon after the liberation of all cities and provinces,” from the hands of militias, he said in a statement.

Analysts view the return of Hadi as mostly symbolic in the short term.

“It’s a signal to all the actors, in the Houthi-camp or anti-Houthi, that the legitimate government is back,” said Mathieu Guidere, a professor and Middle East specialist at the University of Toulouse in France.

“This will not in itself change much on the ground but it will open up the road to Sanaa for the coalition, at the official invitation of the sitting government,” he said.