Hundreds of Yemeni Shia infiltrators have been slain in border clashes, a top Saudi defence official said on Tuesday, after state media said four Saudi soldiers were killed in the fighting with the rebels. Separately, Yemeni forces killed 19 rebels in sweeps to rid the old city of a north Yemeni town of Shia rebel hideouts, Yemen's Interior Ministry said. About 25 rebels were arrested.
Yemen, the Arab world's poorest nation, came to the foreground of US-led efforts to battle militancy after a Yemen-based wing of al Qaeda said it was behind a failed December 25 plot to bomb a US-bound airliner. Saudi Arabia launched its assault on Yemen's Shia Muslim rebels, known as Houthis, in the area near its border with Yemen in November after the insurgents killed two Saudi border guards in a cross-border incursion.
The latest deaths brought to 82 the number of Saudi troops killed in the border conflict with Yemeni Shia rebels, state television said. On December 22, Riyadh said 73 troops had been killed in the fighting.