clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

Houthis kill 5 Saudi soldiers

April 19, 2018 at 3:42 pm

Saudi soldiers [Arab News/Facebook]

Five Saudi soldiers were killed yesterday in clashes with the Houthi along the Kingdom’s southern border with Yemen, local media reported.

Saudi fighter jets launched raids on groups of Houthis in areas near the Jazan border in response to the killings.

The Houthis had announced that their “operation” had targeted Saudi soldiers in Najran, which resulted in the injury and death of dozens of members of the Saudi army.

The head of the group’s Revolutionary Committee, Muhammad Ali al-Houthi, had told Al Jazeera earlier that his group “will face the escalation of attacks by Saudi Arabia and the UAE with further escalations”, asserting that “the Houthis have weapons to deter aggression against the Yemeni people.”

Read: Houthis ‘drone strike’ Saudi Aramco site

Impoverished Yemen has remained in a state of civil war since 2014, when Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including the capital Sana’a.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive air campaign aimed at reversing Houthi military gains and shoring up Yemen’s embattled government.

All negotiations and attempts to reach a ceasefire since have to date failed to stop the bloodshed.

According to UN officials, more than 10,000 people have been killed in the war, while more than 11 per cent of the country’s population has been displaced in what it has described as “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world”.