Coalition warplanes attack Houthi fighters near Saudi border-sources

Warplanes of a Saudi-led coalition bombed Houthi fighters from Yemen seeking to infiltrate Saudi Arabia on Saturday, killing tens of Houthi militiamen, security sources said.   

 

The bombing took place on the Yemeni side of the border close to the Saudi city of Najran, they said. Clashes were also seen in the northwestern Yemeni town of Haradh which borders the kingdom, witnesses told Reuters.     

 

The flare-up in fighting was one of the worst since peace talks began in Kuwait in April between Yemen's government and the Houthis to end a 16-month conflict that has left more than 6,400 people dead, nearly half of them civilians, and displaced more than 2.5 million.       

 

A truce that began in April has slowed the momentum of fighting, but violence continues almost daily.  

 

Prospects for progress in the talks dimmed further this week when Houthi rebels and their allies in the political party of a militarily powerful former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, announced they had decided to form a political council to unilaterally rule the country.  

 

Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the United Nations Yemen envoy, said the move gravely violated U.N. Security Council Resolution 2216, which calls on the Houthis "to refrain from further unilateral actions that could undermine the political transition in Yemen".