RIYADH, CAIRO
A Saudi Arabia-led coalition said Saturday that it launched 1,200 airstrikes on the positions of Yemen's Shiite Houthi group since March 25.
"These strikes have weakened the group," coalition spokesman Ahmed al-Asiri said at a press briefing in Saudi capital Riyadh.
He added that the strikes also targeted troops loyal to ex-Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Al-Asiri noted that coalition troops monitored Yemen's ports and territorial waters to prevent supplies from reaching Houthi militants in the country.
He did not rule out the presence of Iranians helping the Houthis inside Yemen.
Nevertheless, al-Asiri said he could not confirm information in this regard.
3 Saudi soldiers were killed
Meanwhile, 3 Saudi soldiers were killed and two others injured in shelling by Yemen's Shiite Houthi group on Saudi Arabia's southern border, the Saudi Defense Ministry said.
The soldiers were killed late on Friday when Yemen's Houthis shelled a gathering of Saudi ground troops in Najran region, a ministry source was quoted by the official Saudi news agency as saying.
The new fatalities bring to six the total number of Saudis killed since the beginning of a Saudi-led military operation against the Houthis across Yemen on March 25.
The Saudi-led coalition has been pounding the positions of the Houthi group across Yemen since March 25.
Fractious Yemen has remained in turmoil since last September, when the Houthis overran capital Sanaa, from which they have sought to extend their influence to other parts of the country.
Riyadh says the campaign is in response to appeals by embattled Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi – currently in Saudi Arabia – to "save the [Yemeni] people from the Houthi militias."
The Houthis, for their part, have decried the offensive, describing it as unwarranted "Saudi-American aggression."
Some Gulf States accuse Shiite Iran of supporting Yemen's Houthi insurgency.
