RIYADH // Houthi rebels and their allies have killed 376 civilians in Saudi border regions since a Riyadh-led military operation was launched in Yemen last March, the coalition’s spokesman said on Tuesday.
Brigadier General Ahmed Al Assiri said more than 40,000 mortar bombs, Katyusha rockets and other projectiles have been fired into the kingdom from Yemen since the coalition of mostly Arab states began its campaign to push the rebels from seized territory.
That is an average of more than 129 projectiles per day.
They were fired by the Iran-backed Houthis and their allies, elite renegade troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, Brig Gen Al Assiri said.
“Twelve Scud missiles were intercepted,” he added.
The number of civilian casualties exceeds those that have been previously reported by the official Saudi Press Agency (Spa).
Citing civil defence and security sources, Spa has reported around 90 civilians and soldiers killed in shelling and skirmishes.
Brig Gen Al Assiri said the coalition figure “is the total of what the civil defence reported”, and that it has the victims’ names.
But he said he had no figure for the number of soldiers and border guards killed.
It is difficult to stop the rebels who “fire and escape” from mountains, valleys and other hideouts in the rugged region, Assiri said.
Thousands of civilians have been relocated from the border since a previous conflict with the Houthis in 2009-2010.
Meanwhile, fierce clashes broke out between Yemeni security forces and armed men in Aden’s Al Mansoura district on Tuesday.
Residents said the armed men belonged to the local Al Qaeda affiliate, which has a presence in the southern city.
The fighting started when security forces setting up a checkpoint near to the Caltex roundabout came under attack.
“The armed men arrived at the checkpoint in three cars, with different kinds of weapons,” the commander of the checkpoint, Hareez Al Halimi, told local media.
Mr Al Halimi said that some of the attackers were killed in the fighting. Others fled into residential areas, witnesses said.
Two soldiers were also injured.
With its air strikes and ground troops, the Saudi-led coalition is backing the Yemeni government and local resistance forces in a bid to push out the Houthis who seized the capital Sanaa in 2014.
More than 5,800 people have been killed in Yemen since last March, about half of them civilians, according to the United Nations.
* Agence France-Presse
* With additional reporting by Mohammed Al Qalisi
