2 Bahrain soldiers ‘killed by Houthis’ along Saudi-Yemen border

Two soldiers from Bahrain have been killed in an alleged drone strike carried out by Yemen’s Houthi-aligned armed forces in Saudi Arabia close to the common border, according to the Bahrain News Agency (BNA).

In a statement the Bahraini military said that an officer and a soldier were killed yesterday. The pair “were martyred while performing their sacred national duty to defend the southern borders of the sister Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”, the statement said.

“This terrorist attack was carried out by the Houthis, who sent aircraft targeting the position of the Bahraini guards on the southern border of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia despite the halt of military operations between the warring sides in Yemen,” it added. A number of Bahraini soldiers were also wounded in the strike.

At least two #Bahrain-i soldiers, including an officer, were killed along the Saudi-Yemeni border on Monday.

The Bahraini military blamed the deaths on a drone strike by Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement and said several other personnel were wounded.

Bahraini troops are part… pic.twitter.com/ifpQTd9Rwr

— LuaLuaTV (@LuaLuaEnglish) September 25, 2023

Bahrain is part of the Saudi-led coalition that militarily intervened in Yemen in 2015 in order to reinstate the internationally-recognised government after the 21 September Revolution a year earlier. Saudi Brigadier General Turki Al-Malki, spokesman of the coalition, said they reserved “the right to respond at the appropriate time and place.”

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Citing the Saudi Foreign Ministry, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported that the ministry voiced its “condemnation and denunciation” of a “treacherous attack on the defence force of the sister Kingdom of Bahrain stationed on the southern border of the kingdom, which resulted in the martyrdom of a number of its brave soldiers and the injury of others.”

#بيان | تُعرب وزارة الخارجية عن إدانة واستنكار المملكة العربية السعودية للهجوم الغادر الذي تعرضت له قوة دفاع مملكة البحرين الشقيقة المرابطة على الحدود الجنوبية للمملكة، والذي أسفر عنه استشهاد عدد من جنودها البواسل وإصابة آخرين. pic.twitter.com/tkWVxrtVLB

— وزارة الخارجية 🇸🇦 (@KSAMOFA) September 26, 2023

The Kingdom stopped short of explicitly naming the Houthis as being behind the attack, but did renew calls for halting arms exports to them. Earlier this month, Riyadh and the Sanaa government have been holding Omani-brokered peace talks, aimed at ending the nine-year war in Yemen.

Although the Houthi movement has not confirmed the incident nor taken responsibility for it, spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam told Reuters that violations of the truce, which has largely held since officially expiring last October, were “regrettable”.

The BNA reported that the fallen servicemen were repatriated to the Gulf kingdom yesterday, arriving at the Isa Air Base, where a military ceremony was conducted.

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