RIYADH // Five Saudi border guards were killed in clashes along the Yemen border and two Saudi pilots died when their Apache helicopter crashed inside Yemen on Monday in one of the deadliest days for the kingdom’s troops in months.
Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry said the border guards were killed in an eight-hour-long cross-border clash with militants from Yemen. At around 6am on Monday, border guards repelled attempts by armed groups to cross Saudi Arabia’s southern border from Yemen.
The interior ministry did not identify the attackers, but said the clashes took place in Najran. A day earlier, the kingdom’s air defence forces shot down a ballistic missile fired from Yemen toward Najran.
The Saudi-led military coalition has been fighting Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who hold territory inside Yemen near the Saudi border.
Also on Monday, the coalition said two Saudi pilots died when their helicopter crashed “due to weather conditions”, though it did not specify where in Yemen the crash occurred.
Since March 2015, the mainly Arab coalition, which includes the UAE, has been battling the Iranian-allied Houthis who control territory inside Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa. The coalition is backing Yemen’s internationally recognised government, which was forced to flee Sanaa and operate out of the southern port city of Aden.
* Associated Press
