SANA’A (Dispatches) – Nearly a dozen Sudanese
soldiers have been killed as intense fighting between Saudi-led coalition forces and Takfiri militants on one side and Yemeni army troops and their allies on the other in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern region of Jizan.
Lebanon’s Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network, citing military sources, reported that Yemeni soldiers and allied fighters from Popular Committees are advancing in the area and have taken control of multiple locations in the al-Huthirah district.
The sources said 10 Sudanese mercenaries were killed and at least 17 others injured in fresh fighting.
Back in June 2019, then deputy chairman of Sudan’s Transitional Military Council (TMC) General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo said in a public address that as many as 30,000 Sudanese militants were fighting alongside Saudi Arabia and its allies in Yemen.
Sudanese forces, he said, were the biggest among the Saudi-led coalition.
The news comes as reports revealed that more than 50 high-ranking Saudi-backed militant commanders loyal to former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi have been killed this month while fighting Yemeni army troops and their allies over the control of the country’s strategic oil-producing province of Ma’rib.
Yemen’s al-Khabar al-Yemeni news website, citing informed sources who preferred not to be named, reported that Ma’rib province has witnessed intense clashes between Yemeni army soldiers and fighters from Popular Committees on one side and Saudi-backed militants on the other over the past few weeks.
The report added that the Yemeni forces and their allies are slowly but steadily making progress, due to the geographical features of the region and heavy deployment of troops and military equipment by the Saudi-led coalition.
Yemeni forces on Friday continued their advances east of Yemen’s strategic city of Ma’rib, and reached the fringes of oil fields, military sources said.
They said intense clashes were underway between Saudi-backed militants loyal to Hadi and Yemeni armed forces on several fronts in Eastern Balaq and Eastern Sahara districts.
The sources said Yemeni troops and Popular Committees fighters had established control over al-Botr, al-Naqa’a and al-‘Akkad areas, which sit east of al-Balaq mountain range.
Locals also said fierce clashes were going on around Safar oil fields, which are under the control of Saudi mercenaries and that the exchange of gunfire has stopped operations at the fields and a nearby refinery.