Houthis claim to have killed 500 Saudi soldiers

Houthi rebels in Yemen say they have killed 500 Saudi soldiers, captured a further 2,000 and seized a convoy of Saudi military vehicles, reports The Guardian.

The extraordinary claims at a press conference on Sunday, involving still photographs and inconclusive videos of captured soldiers, many not in uniform, could not be corroborated, and there was no independent confirmation from Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis, showing pictures of upturned Saudi vehicles and immobilised convoys, claimed the attacks had occurred over the past three days in the southern Najran region of Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen, and would continue with greater intensity.

‘Operation Victory from God is the largest military one since the brutal aggression began. The enemy suffered heavy losses … and wide swathes of territory were liberated in only a few days,’ said the Houthi spokesman, Mohammed Abdul Salam.

He also claimed hundreds of Saudi soldiers lay dead or injured on the battlefield, and Riyadh had little option but to consider how to withdraw. He said the Houthis would end their attacks if the Saudis took reciprocal measures.

The attacks, if verified, would be a remarkable show of force inside Saudi Arabia and mark another embarrassment for the kingdom, after its US-made Patriot missile defence system failed to protect two Saudi Aramco oil sites from an attack by drones and cruise missiles earlier this month.

On Saturday, the Houthis claimed they had captured three Saudi brigades – a major proportion of the kingdom’s army. The group also says it was responsible for the oil attacks, but this has been disputed by western and European governments.

Huthi rebels have freed 290 prisoners, including dozens of survivors from a Saudi-led coalition strike on a detention centre earlier this month, the ICRC said Monday, reports AFP.

The International Committee of the Red Cross hailed the move as ‘a positive step that will hopefully revive the release, transfer and repatriation of conflict-related detainees’ under a deal struck last year between the rebels and Yemen’s government.

The Huthis recently announced the capture of hundreds of Yemeni loyalist forces in an August offensive near the Saudi border, but they were not among those freed on Monday.

Abdel Kader Mortaza, the Huthi official in charge of prisoner affairs claims that they had taken prisoner more than 2,000 fighters, including Saudi soldiers, in the August offensive near the southern Saudi region of Najran.

A government source confirmed to AFP that 200 prisoners were killed in the fighting, but said that the number of prisoners taken was less than the Huthis claimed, estimating the number to be about 1,300 Yemeni soldiers.

Mortaza said the fighters were held in what he described as the rebels’ largest ‘operation to capture prisoners’ and that they would be treated ‘humanely’.

However, he described Monday’s release of prisoners as designed to ‘break the deadlock that has prevailed for several months’.

‘This initiative reasserts our seriousness and credibility when it comes to the implementation of the (Sweden) agreement,’ Mortaza said.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net