Three Saudi soldiers have been killed in a clash with armed "hostile elements" who attempted to infiltrate the border from Yemen, the interior ministry said on Monday. The clash erupted on Sunday evening hours after a Saudi border guard and two Yemeni civilians were killed in separate incidents in the border region, according to the ministry.
In the latest incident border guards in the south-western Jazan district "confronted... an infiltration attempt by hostile elements" who targeted military posts with gunfire and rockets, the ministry said. The infiltrators were "forced to retreat" but three soldiers were killed in the clash, it added in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. The ministry did not specify if the infiltrators belonged to the Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels who frequently clash with Saudi forces and bomb the border region.