MA’RIB (Dispatches) – At least 29 Saudi-backed militants and mercenaries have been killed or injured by Yemeni Army and allied popular forces committees forces in Yemen’s Ma’rib province, according to former regime officials.
Fighting between the Sana’a-based Yemeni government forces, backed by Houthi Ansarullah forces, and the Saudi-backed militants has escalated in recent months.
According to figures provided by former regime officials, nearly 3,000 Saudi-backed militants were killed and injured in the battle for Ma’rib in October.
On Sunday, al-Khabar al-Yemeni cited medical sources as saying that 1,323 pro-Hadi militants, including senior commanders, were killed in Ma’rib last month, while 1,615 others were injured.
According to the report, 60 percent of the casualties took place in al-Abdiyah and al-Juba districts.
A Yemeni military source also said the army forces also thwarted an attempt by Saudi mercenaries to advance in the province of Ta’izz.
Yemen’s al-Masirah television network quoted a military source as saying that Saudi-backed mercenaries had sought to infiltrate “from several routes on the fronts of al-Dabab and Tubayshi’ah [districts] in Ta’izz Province”, but they were repelled by the Yemeni forces.
The source added that the Yemeni forces killed and injured dozens of mercenaries in the operation and destroyed their equipment.
The Saudi mercenaries’ frequent attempts to escalate the situation in Ta’izz and other regions aimed to relieve the military pressure exerted by Yemeni forces on their fellow militants in Ma’rib.
Saudi Arabia, backed by the U.S. and regional allies, launched the war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the popular Ansarullah movement, which has been running the Yemeni government from the capital, Sana’a, since the former Yemeni government fled from the capital.
The war has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead, and displaced millions more. It has also destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases in the poorest Middle Eastern country.