SANA’A (Dispatches) – Yemeni army forces and popular committees have taken control of an area near the Saudi border.
Launching a large-scale military operation against Saudi army positions in Najran on Sunday, Sana’a forces managed to take control of the al-Hathira area in the Saudi city of Jizan.
The clashes between Yemeni and Saudi forces left several people killed and injured from both sides.
Jizan is a port city and the capital of the Jizan Region, which lies in the southwest corner of Saudi Arabia and directly north of the border with Yemen.
Sana’a forces also launched another attack on the Saudi army’s positions in Al Tuwal province in southwestern Saudi Arabia.
Two days earlier, Yemeni army troops, backed by allied fighters from Popular Committees, took full control of a strategic area in the country’s northern province of Hajjah close to the border with Saudi Arabia.
Military sources, requesting anonymity, told Yemen News Portal website that Yemeni soldiers and allied fighters established control over al-Hathera area in the Harad district, after they exchanged heavy gunfire with Saudi-paid militants.
The sources said Yemeni army troops and Popular Committees fighters also captured a military camp in the area, which housed Saudi mercenaries of Sudanese origin.
The development came a day after Yemeni forces fired ballistic missiles at a military base of the Saudi-led coalition in Hajjah province, killing 10 Sudanese mercenaries.
“The missiles struck the units of Sudanese troops, who are part of the Saudi-led coalition, in Hajjah province near the border with Saudi Arabia,” a local military source said on condition of anonymity.
“A total of 10 Sudanese soldiers were killed and more than 25 others injured in Hajjah’s district of Midi.”
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies -- including the United Arab Emirates -- launched a brutal war against Yemen in March 2015.
The war was launched to eliminate Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstall ex-president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.
The war, accompanied by a tight siege, has failed to reach its goals, but it has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemeni people.