A top Saudi commander and an Emirati officer died in Yemen on Monday during Arab coalition operations against Iran-backed rebels, the Riyadh-led alliance said.
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In a statement published by the Saudi Press Agency, the coalition said that Col. Abdullah al-Sahyan, a Saudi Special Forces commander, had been killed fighting Houthi militiamen near the Yemeni city of Taiz, located roughly 175 kilometers northwest of Aden.
5,700 individuals, almost half of them civilians, have been killed in air strikes and fighting on the earth since the Saudi-led coalition started a military campaign in March Houthis captured Sanaa and progressed after the towards the second city of Aden.
Media controlled by the Houthi rebels media said the two had been killed in a rocket attack on the Red Sea coast.
They appear to have been killed by a missile fired by Houthi rebels at troops from the Saudi-led coalition seeking to restore Yemen’s government.
Sahyan on Saturday met Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi who awarded him with a medal of courage, according to Yemen’s official sabanews.net.
A week-long extendable ceasefire is scheduled to come into effect on Monday to coincide with the talks.
If confirmed, the attack would be the deadliest on the coalition since 45 Emirati troops were killed when a Tochka missile hit a base in Marib province, east of the capital, Sanaa, in September.
Previous peace talks in June failed and a ceasefire the next month quickly unraveled, but months of stalemate in ground combat and reports of increased pressure by Gulf Arabs’ Western allies to end the war may encourage a political settlement.
So far at least 80 people, mostly soldiers and border guards, have been killed in Saudi Arabia because of the Yemen conflict.
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Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah news website reported that the Yemeni army, backed by popular committees loyal to the Ansarullah movement, targeted a Saudi military headquarters in Ta’izz with a Tochka ballistic missile on Sunday night.
