DUBAI (Reuters) – Yemen’s Houthi movement issued video footage on Saturday purportedly of an incursion by its fighters into a Saudi Arabian border area on the frontlines in which Houthi-run media said Saudi soldiers were captured and killed.
The spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition which has been battling the Iran-aligned Houthi group for over six years did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Houthi-run Al Masirah television on Twitter cited a military source as saying more than 80 Saudi soldiers and Sudanese “mercenaries” were killed or injured, while tens were captured in the operation in the vicinity of Al Khoubah in the southern Saudi region of Jazan.
If confirmed, the attack would further complicate attempts by the United Nations and United States to establish a ceasefire in a conflict widely seen in the region as a proxy war between rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Some of the video footage on Al Masirah’s Telegram account, the authenticity of which could not be independently verified by Reuters, showed men in military uniform coming under fire as they fled down a rocky mountain slope.
Sudanese troops have been deployed as part of the Saudi-led military alliance that intervened in Yemen in March 2015 after the Houthis ousted the internationally recognised government from the capital Sanaa.
The war has been in military stalemate for years, with the Houthis holding most of northern Yemen.
(Writing by Ghaida Ghantous; Editing by Mark Potter)
