Dozens of Yemeni government troops killed in deadliest Houthi strike in years

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - SANAA — As many as 58 members of the Yemeni government forces were killed and dozens wounded on Thursday in drone and missile attacks carried out by Houthi rebels, according to medical sources.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the attacks were in retaliation for what they described as a recent military buildup against the Iran-backed group.

The attacks killed at least 38 government troops and injured 29, two medical sources told AFP. Military sources have told the pro-government newspaper Aden al-Ghad and the anti-Houthi Belqees TV website that more than 40 troops were killed.

The exact death toll was has not been verified. AFP cited a military source as saying at least 58 Yemeni troops had been killed, an increase from the 38 dead it had previously reported.

A military official described them as the deadliest strike against Yemen’s internationally recognized government since 2022.

The Yemeni defense ministry said ballistic missiles and drones struck several camps in the provinces of Marib and Hadramawt, resulting in the death and injury of a number of Yemeni personnel. It did not give an exact toll.

The ministry said its armed forces would respond to the "trecherous" attacks "at the appropriate place and time".

The military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that a military camp in the al-Ruwaik area of Marib province, in central Yemen, had been attacked, as well as camps in the Al-Abr and Al-Wadiah areas of Hadramawt, near the border with Saudi Arabia.

One missile attack hit troops during their morning formation at the camp in Marib, "killing and wounding at least 45 personnel", said a military source, who declined to be named for security reasons.

Saree named Al-Ruwaik, al-Thaniyah and al-Abr as being among the areas hit, warning the rebels were "prepared to confront any escalation".

In a separate attack on Thursday, the Houthi rebels wounded 11 civilians in southern Saudi Arabia, the International Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen said on Friday.

The Joint Forces Command of the Saudi-led coalition said the civilians were injured late Thursday when projectiles fired by the Houthis hit civilian areas in the border region of Najran.

Seven Saudi citizens, a Yemeni, two Egyptians and a Pakistani national were wounded in the attack. A woman and a four-year-old child, who suffered second-degree burns, were among the Saudi victims, coalition spokesman Major General Turki Al-Malki said.

"The terrorist Houthi militia carried out indiscriminate shelling in flagrant violation of all customary norms and the international humanitarian law, deliberately targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure," the coalition spokesman said in a statement, carried by the Saudi Press Agency.

"The Joint Forces Command of the Coalition will continue to undertake all deterrent measures to protect civilians from terrorist aggressions," Al-Malki warned.

The attacks underscore a sharp deterioration in Yemen’s security situation after the country’s long-running conflict became entangled in the wider regional confrontation last month.

The Houthi attacks in central Yemen happened at 10:40 local time (07:40 GMT) on Thursday, according to Yemen's defense ministry.

Saree claimed the attacks caused the death and injury of hundreds of mercenaries, and destroyed a large number of buildings, weapons and military vehicles.

The coalition reaffirmed Saudi Arabia’s support for Yemen’s internationally recognized government and expressed condolences to the families of those killed, while wishing those injured a speedy recovery.

The Houthi militia, which controls the capital Sanaa and much of northern Yemen, abandoned a fragile truce with the internationally-backed government, triggering a new cycle of hostilities. The group later declared a maritime blockade of Saudi ports and began targeting Saudi-linked shipping.

On Thursday, representatives of 43 countries attended the coalition's founding meeting, where the new commander stressed it was "purely defensive in nature and does not target any country, organization or coalition", Saudi media reported.

The Houthis announced a "maritime embargo" against Saudi Arabia on July 20 and began launching missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers in the Red Sea.

The group said it was retaliating for a Saudi blockade of ports and airports in the territory they control, as well as an air strike on Sanaa airport that they blamed on the Kingdom despite a claim from the Yemeni government.

Saudi Arabia has responded with strikes targeting Houthi positions and by forming a new naval coalition to protect shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq called on all parties to "exercise restraint and refrain from actions that could lead to further military escalation".

"Renewed fighting risks reversing the hard-won gains made towards reducing violence in the past years," he told reporters.

The US mission to Yemen said the Houthis' attacks were "cowardly" and another example of what it called "their terrorism against the Yemeni people".

Yemen has been devastated by a civil war that began in 2014, when the Houthis ousted the government from Sanaa, the capital. The conflict escalated in 2015, after the Saudi-led coalition of Arab states intervened in an attempt to restore the government's rule.

The fighting has reportedly left more than 150,000 people dead and triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with more than 22 million people in need of some form of aid, according to the UN.

A UN-brokered ceasefire has largely held since 2022, but there has been a significant escalation in recent weeks.