Saudi-led air strikes kill 150 Yemen rebel fighters

SANA’A: The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said on Monday it had killed 150 Houthi rebels near Marib, as fierce fighting raged for the strategic city in a war that has lasted seven years.

Air strikes “destroyed 13 military vehicles and killed 150 terrorist elements” in Abdiya within the past 24 hours, the coalition said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

The latest toll takes to more than 1,100 the number of rebels the coalition says it has killed in the past week around Abdiya which is about 100 kilometres from Marib, the internationally recognised government’s last bastion in oil-rich northern Yemen.

The Iran-backed Houthis rarely comment on losses, and the numbers could not be independently verified.

In a televised speech on Monday, rebel leader Abdelmalek al-Houthi called for continued fighting.

“We must ... confront the aggression with all firmness until the siege is lifted, the aggression and the occupation ends,” he said.

Tens of thousands of Houthi sympathisers reportedly took part in a rally on Monday in areas under the control of the insurgents. In video footage, government loyalists shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) as they fired assault rifles on a rebel position in Marib and clouds of smoke billowed from the base of a mountain range.

“We are today fighting on the southern front line” of Marib, one of them says.

“We gave the enemy an unforgettable lesson and captured some of them,” he said.

“We thank the Arab coalition for their air support and the strikes that they carried out against the enemy and for the destruction of their vehicles.”

On Sunday, the Houthis declared on Twitter that they had advanced on several fronts around Marib.