After a few days of heavy Saudi airstrikes in Yemen, the Houthis claimed to have killed at least eight Saudi soldiers. Houthi spokesman Yahya Sarea said late Sunday that the Houthis attacked a camp where Saudi forces are stationed in the Marib governorate with a ballistic missile.
Saudi Arabia did not comment on the Marib assault, but Saudi media reported the death of a lieutenant colonel without specifying where he was killed. It’s normal for the Saudis to stay quiet about successful Houthi assaults.
The Marib attack came after airstrikes from the US-backed Saudi-led coalition were carried out in several cities across north Yemen. Some media outlets framed the airstrikes as retaliation for a Houthi missile attack on a Saudi oil facility in Jeddah that took place last week. But as the Houthis and Yemen have been under a US-backed Saudi-led siege since 2015, Saudi airstrikes are nothing new.
At least one civilian was killed in Saudi airstrikes on Friday in Yemen’s capital Sanaa. The Houthi-run Al-Masirah News said one civilian was killed and another was wounded during Saudi shelling in the city of Sadaa on Sunday.