Houthis say army advances repelled in north

Houthi fighters in Yemen claim to have parried incursions by the army into their strongholds in the north, forcing government troops to retreat with their tanks ablaze.

The Houthis said they repelled the Yemeni soldiers who stormed their position on Thursday in the border village of al-Jabiri, 966 kilometers (600 miles) from the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Four army tanks were destroyed in fierce clashes, the Houthis said, adding that they repelled another government advance in the northern Kataf district.

Yemen has maintained the bombardment of the northern city of Sa’ada, prompting a response from Houthi fighters who in retaliation attacked the city’s military command center.

Officials in Sana’a had no comment on the latest clashes.

Meanwhile, Saudi attacks in the north continued with more than a dozen airstrikes conducted by the Royal Saudi Air Force targeting civilian areas, the Houthis said.

Saudi Arabia has been pounding northern Yemen for months as part of a joint campaign with Sana’a against the Houthi fighters. The fighting has been costly for Riyadh, Houthis said.

Saudi Maj. Gen. Ali Zaid Al-Khawalji said the army has tasked units with retrieving the bodies of slain Saudi soldiers.

He said a number of Saudi troops — a lieutenant colonel who was a veteran of the first war in the Persian Gulf — had been killed in clashes with Houthi fighters in the area last week.

Saudi intervention, which began in November, has left at least 113 troops killed and hundreds of others wounded.

Houthis accuse Riyadh of targeting civilian areas far from the Saudi-Yemeni border. They say the attacks have so far left scores of civilians killed and thousands of others displaced.