Houthi fighters kill Saudi captain during clashes in southern Yemen

Yemeni fighters from the Houthi Ansarullah movement have reportedly engaged Saudi military forces near the kingdom’s southwestern border regions, and killed a captain in the clashes.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Saturday that Captain Mohammed bin Eid bin Abdullah al-Subaie from ground forces was killed several days ago, when Ansarullah fighters launched an attack against a border outpost in southern Saudi Arabia.

The report added that Prince Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Abdulaziz , the deputy governor of Riyadh, and a number of senior military figures and members of the royal family prayed for the slain Saudi officer at al-Rajhi Grand Mosque in Riyadh on Friday.

Separately, military sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that Yemeni army soldiers, backed by fighters from allied Popular Committees, launched mortar attacks against al-Kars, al-Tabbah al-Hamra and al-Soudaneh military camps in Saudi Arabia's border region of Jizan, located 967 kilometers southwest of the capital Riyadh, on Saturday.

There were, however, no immediate reports about possible casualties or the extent of damage caused.

Scores of troops also lost their lives or sustained injuries, when Yemeni forces shelled al-Ghawiyah outpost in the same Saudi region.

Moreover, Yemeni artillery units targeted al-Jawazat and Rabuah bases as well as al-Alab border crossing in the kingdom’s southwestern region of Asir in an apparent retaliation for the Riyadh regime’s incessant aerial bombardment campaign against their impoverished and beleaguered country.

The projectiles left an unspecified number of Saudi troopers dead or injured, and destroyed their military hardware.

Also on Saturday, Saudi fighter jets carried out separate aerial assaults against residential neighborhoods in Yemen’s southwestern and northwestern province of Ta’izz And Hajjah, with no immediate casualties reported.

Saudi border guards had earlier launched an attack in the Munabbih district of the northern Yemeni province of Sa’ada, killing a civilian and injuring four others.

Saudi Arabia has been leading an invasion of Yemen from the air, land, and sea since March 2015 in an attempt to reinstate former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh, and to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement. The Riyadh regime has, however, failed to reach its goals despite suffering great expense.

The military aggression has claimed the lives of more than 12,000 people, mostly civilians, raising concerns among international rights organizations and the United Nations.

Those organizations have been repeatedly calling on Saudi Arabia and its partners in the war to end the indiscriminate targeting of areas in Yemen.

The aggressor regimes have also imposed a total embargo on Yemen, causing severe shortages of food and medicine. A recent cholera epidemic has been blamed on those shortages. 

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