IANS/AKI
Sanaa, OCTOBER 1 : A Shia Houthi rebel leader was killed along with 10 Houthi fighters in a Saudi air raid in northwest Yemen on Friday while a Saudi border guard was killed and three civilians including a Bangladeshi injured in shelling by Yemeni militias, reports said.
The Houthi leader was killed in Saada’s Razah district located in the Burkan region, Arabic satellite TV channel Al-Arabiya reported, citing local sources.
Shelling from Yemeni militias killed a Saudi border guard and wounded three civilians including a Bangladeshi on Friday, Al-Arabiya cited the interior ministry as saying.
A soldier was killed on the Saudi frontier with Yemen when the Tuwal district of Jazan came under fire on Thursday, according to the interior ministry.
Two Saudis and a Bangladeshi national were wounded by Houthi shelling of Tuwal the same day, Yemen’s civil defence agency said in a separate statement.
Meanwhile Yemen’s army has made advances in Taiz, according to Al-Arabiya. About 20 casualties were reported among militia men allied to the Houthis and to deposed President Ali Abdullah Saleh after Arab coalition airstrikes targeted their positions in the southwestern city.
The Saudi-led coalition that began air strikes against the Houthis in March 2015 will not sign a Yemeni peace deal unless this requires the Houthi movement to disband its armed wing, a spokesman told reporters in Berlin.
The kingdom would not “accept an armed militia at our back door, said Saudi Brigadier General Ahmed al-Asseri, effectively rebuffing an offer by the Iran-allied group for a truce made three days earlier.
Pro-Houthi forces reportedly control much of the northern half of Yemen while local tribes share control of the rest of the country with forces loyal to President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who had to flee the country when the rebels overran Sanaa in September 2014 and pushed south. The conflict has killed at least 10,000 people and has brought impoverished Yemen towards famine.
