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Ahram Online
The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said, Monday, it “killed 150 Houthi rebels near Marib”, as fierce fighting raged for the strategic city.
“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 Saudi Press Agency.
The coalition claims it eliminated 1,100 rebels in the past week around Abdiya. The area is about 100 kilometres (60 miles) 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 by AFP.
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 and the aggression and the occupation ends”, he said.
“Tens of thousands of Houthi sympathisers took part in a rally on Monday in areas under the control of the insurgents”, AFP correspondents reported.
On Sunday, the Houthis declared, on Twitter, that they had “advanced on several fronts around Marib including Abdiya”, which is where the coalition says it is pounding the insurgents.
The Houthis began a major push to seize Marib in February. Yemen’s civil war began in 2014, when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa, 120 kilometres (75 miles) West of Marib, prompting Saudi-led forces to intervene to prop up the government the following year.
Tens of thousands of people have died, and millions have been displaced and starved, in what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
