Saudi Tornado’s (archive)

RIYADH, November 5, 2009 (AFP) – Saudi jets pounded Shiite rebel camps in northern Yemen on Thursday and troops were ready to cross the border after they killed a Saudi border guard, an informed Saudi source said.

F-15 and Tornado jets have been bombing the positions of the Zaidi rebels near the border with southern Jizan province since Wednesday, the source said.

“They’ve been hit hard and it’s ongoing,” he told AFP.

“This is not a hit and run, this is a sustained action” that could involve a ground incursion into Yemen to “clean out” the rebel camps in coordination with Yemeni authorities, he added.

Saudi officials would not confirm the attacks despite media reports from Jizan of numerous air sorties and heavy bombing across the border.

A Yemeni defence ministry spokesman would only deny “the rebels’ allegations of Saudi air raids against Yemeni villages.”

The United States also said it had no confirmation about the attacks, but State Department spokesman Ian Kelly voiced Washington’s concern about the expanding conflict.

“We’re concerned by the expansion of the conflict along the Saudi-Yemeni border,” Kelly said. “It’s our view that there can be no long-term military solution to the conflict between the Yemeni government and the rebels.”

“We call on all parties to the conflict to make every effort to protect civilian populations and limit damage to civilian infrastructure.”

The assault was launched after a small group of Zaidi militants entered Saudi territory on Tuesday in the rugged Jebel al-Dukhan area and occupied two small frontier villages.

They shot dead a border guard and wounded another 11 before being driven out by Saudi troops.

“We took back a small piece of territory and hit their camps around Saada,” in northwest Yemen, the Saudi source said.

The source also said that possibly more Saudis had been killed in the fighting.

Earlier, Zaidi officials said Saudi jets “had used phosphorous bombs” on them, but the allegation could not be independently verified.

The Saudi assault comes nearly three months after Yemeni government forces launched a campaign on August 11 against the rebels, also known as Huthis, driving them across the mountainous landscape toward the Saudi border.

The rebels accused the Saudis in recent weeks of allowing Yemeni government forces to launch attacks on them from Saudi territory, a claim both Riyadh and Sanaa have denied.

Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded in the ongoing clashes.

Tens of thousands more have been forced to flee their homes, resulting in a humanitarian crisis complicated by a dire shortage of food and other basic necessities.

The Zaidis form the majority community in the far north but are a minority in mainly Sunni Yemen.

Yemeni authorities accuse the rebels of seeking to restore the Zaidi imamate that ruled in Sanaa until its overthrow in a republican coup in 1962 that sparked eight years of civil war. The rebels deny the charge.

Sanaa has accused Iran of backing the rebels, and on October 28 said it had arrested five Iranians on a boat loaded with weapons allegedly destined for the Zaidis.

Diplomats and experts have expressed doubts that Tehran is actively involved in the conflict, but the Zaidi attack on Tuesday inflamed anti-Iran sentiment in Saudi Arabia.

“People are very angry about these incursions by a group which has the backing of Iran,” said a Saudi official speaking privately.

“Who is supporting this group through the media?”

Meanwhile, the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council condemned the Zaidi attack on group member Saudi Arabia.

“Any breach of security of the kingdom is a breach of security for all members of the Council,” GCC Secretary General Abdulrahman al-Attiyah said in a statement carried on the official Saudi news agency SPA.

Yemen is not a GCC member.

Source: business.maktoob.com