14 December 2015•Update: 14 December 2015
DOHA, Qatar/SANAA, Yemen
A high-ranking Saudi Arabian military commander has been killed fighting Yemen’s Shia Houthi militant group, a Saudi-led anti-Houthi coalition announced Monday.
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.
According to the statement, al-Sahyan -- along with a high-ranking military officer from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) -- was killed while taking part in operations to "liberate" Taiz from Houthi control.
Al-Sahyan, the coalition noted, was the highest-ranking Saudi officer to be killed in Yemen since the Saudi-led coalition began operations in March.
A senior Yemeni government source, meanwhile, told Anadolu Agency that al-Sahyan had been killed on Monday in clashes with the Houthis near the nearby Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.
According to the source, al-Sahyan had been directing coalition operations from a military site located between the strategic Bab-el-Mandeb and the Al-Omari region of Yemen’s Taiz province.
The source added that al-Sahyan, who had been heading up a coalition force including troops and tanks, was killed -- along with two Saudi troops and the UAE officer -- by a Houthi rocket.
Missile attack
In a related development, Yemen’s Houthi-linked Al-Maseera television channel reported that Houthi militiamen had carried out a missile attack on Jizan International Airport in the western Saudi city of Jizan on Monday morning.
Anadolu Agency, however, has yet to independently verify the assertion.
According to the television channel, the Houthis successfully fired a "Qahir-1" missile at the airport.
Houthi spokesmen, for their part, say the same kind of missile was used in a recent attack on the Prince Khaled Air Base in the Saudi city of Khamis Mushait, located north of Jazan.
According to the Al-Maseera TV channel, the Russian-made surface-to-air missile was locally upgraded to strike targets at a distance of 300 kilometers, while its explosive payload was increased.
Residents of the town of Dilaa-Hamadan north of capital Sanaa told Anadolu Agency that they had heard a loud explosion early Monday morning, comparing the sound to that of a rocket being fired from Houthi-held parts of the capital.
Sanaa residents also said that warplanes from the Saudi-led coalition had carried out six airstrikes on Houthi positions in the Hamadan Directorate.
The latest developments come only one day before the scheduled launch of consultation talks in Geneva, at which Houthi negotiators will meet Yemeni government representatives under UN auspices in hopes of reaching a cease-fire deal.
