News / Yemen

Over dozen Saudi mercenaries killed, injured in Yemeni army offensives

Tuesday, 09 April 2019 4:53 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 09 April 2019 6:27 PM ]

In this file picture, Yemeni forces prepare to launch a domestically-manufactured Zelzal-1 (Earthquake-1) ballistic missile at a military site in Saudi Arabia. (Photo by the media bureau of Yemen’s Operations Command Center)

Over a dozen Saudi-sponsored militiamen loyal to Yemen's former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi have been killed when Yemeni army soldiers and fighters from allied Popular Committees launched separate offensives against their positions in the kingdom’s border region of Asir.

An unnamed Yemeni military source told the Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that Yemeni troops and their allies fired a domestically-manufactured Zelzal-1 (Earthquake-1) ballistic missile at a gathering of Saudi mercenaries outside al-Rabu’ah town of the region on Tuesday evening, leaving several of them dead and injured.

Earlier in the day, Yemeni forces and their allies had staged an ambush against Saudi-paid militiamen in the al-Alab border crossing of the same Saudi region, killing 15 of them in the process, the media bureau of the Houthi Ansarullah movement reported.

Separately, a number of Saudi mercenaries were killed and injured when Yemeni troopers and fighters from Popular Committees carried out an offensive in Yemen’s northern province of al-Jawf.

In this file picture taken on February 21, 2019 armed Yemeni men raise their weapons as they gather near the capital Sana’a to show their support to the Houthi Ansarullah movement against the Saudi-led aggression. (By AFP)

The developments came on the same day that Saudi mercenaries lobbed more than ten mortar shells at residential neighborhoods in the al-Hawak district of the western Yemeni coastal province of Hudaydah.

There were no immediate reports about possible casualties and the extent of damage caused.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of Hadi back to power and crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

Yemenis visit a cemetery in the capital Sana’a on April 5, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

According to a report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of about 56,000 Yemenis.

The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years.

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