HoutHis suffer big blow

sanaa — A Saudi-led airstrike targeting a high-level meeting of Houthi rebels in Yemen’s capital killed two of the group’s leaders and dozens of their militiamen, the kingdom’s state media reported early on Saturday. The Houthis did not immediately acknowledge the strike.

Saudi state-run television said the strike on Friday killed more than 50 militiamen, including the two leaders. It did not elaborate.

That dispatch followed a far more detailed report on the strike by Al Arabiya, a Dubai-based satellite news network now believed to be majority-owned by Saudi Arabia.

Al Arabiya, without offering a source, said the strike hit a building belonging to Yemen’s Interior Ministry in the country’s rebel-held capital, Sanaa. It said more than 38 Houthi fighters, including the two leaders, were killed in the strike targeting a high-level meeting.

Al Masirah, a Houthi-run satellite news channel, acknowledged that Houthi leaders met on Friday to discuss Saturday’s funeral of Saleh Al Samad, a Houthi political leader killed over a week ago in a Saudi airstrike.

Houthis held Al Samad’s funeral in the capital, bringing together thousands of Yemenis in Sabeen Square to pay tribute to the slain head of the rebels’ Supreme Political Council, which runs rebel-held areas in Yemen. Top Houthi officials including Al Samad’s successor Mahdi Al Mashat, a former Houthi fighter, attended. —