Ansarullah fighters kill 7 Saudi mercenaries in western Yemen

Fighters from the Yemeni Ansarullah movement have engaged in fierce clashes with militiamen loyal to Saudi-backed resigned president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi in the country’s southwestern province of Ta’izz, killing a number of them.

Medical and security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Saturday that skirmishes near the Red Sea port city of Mukha, situated 346 kilometers south of the capital, Sana'a, had left seven pro-Saudi gunmen and eight Ansarullah fighters dead over the past 24 hours.

On January 7, pro-Hadi militia forces, backed by the Saudi air force, began a major offensive to recapture Mukha, which overlooks the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, from Ansarullah fighters.

There have been intense clashes over the past month both inland and north of the city, leaving tens of people from the two sides killed.

Meanwhile, scores of Saudi-sponsored gunmen were killed when Yemeni army forces, supported by allied fighters from Popular Committees, targeted their vehicle in the Khabb wa ash Sha'af district of Yemen’s northern province of al-Jawf.

Separately, an unnamed military source told Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that Yemeni forces and their allies had thwarted an infiltration attempt by Hadi loyalists into the Jabal al-Tahani mountainous region of the southern Yemeni province of Dhale, killing four mercenaries.

Additionally, several Saudi troopers and pro-Hadi militiamen were killed or injured when Yemeni soldiers and Popular Committees fighters struck their position in the al-Alab border crossing of Saudi Arabia’s southern and border region of Asir. There were no immediate reports about possible casualties or the extent of damage caused.

Yemeni soldiers and their allies also fired a salvo of rockets and artillery rounds at Hajar and al-Masial military camps in Asir, with no reports of casualties available.

The developments came on the same day that Saudi fighter jets carried out a string of aerial attacks against residential areas across Yemen.

SS