Move FM Global News

SANA’A, Yemen – Al-Houthi rebels in Yemen claim they have captured thousands of Saudi troops, after a majoir conflict in which many Saudi soldiers were killed.

The BBC reported a claim from an al-Houthi spokesman that three Saudi brigades had surrendered near the Saudi town of Najran.

Reuters news agency is also carrying the claim but qualifies that it has not been able to independently verify the claim.

Saudi Arabia has not commented on the report. The official Saudi Press Agency in its latest bulletins has not referred to any capture of Saudi troops.

The operation was the largest of its kind since the conflict began, the spokesman said, and included the capture of hundreds of armored vehicles ass well as the soldiers.

Colonel Yahiya Sarea was quoted as saying Saudi forces had suffered “huge losses in life and machinery.”

All those captured would be paraded on the al-Houthi-run Al Masirah TV network on Sunday, he said.

The al-Houthi rebels who have been waging war against the Saudi-led coalition since its engagement in 2015 took responsibility for the attack on Saudi Aramco’s oil infrastructure two weeks ago. Despite the claim, Saudi Arabia, the United States and the UK insists Iran was behind the attacks.

Yemen has been at war since 2015, when President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi and his cabinet were forced to flee the capital Sanaa by the Houthis – which hold much of the north of the country.

Saudi Arabia’s coalition which includes the UAE and Bahrain, supports Yemen’s President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi who has lost control of a large part of thje country and lives in Saudi Arabia.

The country’s civil war has precipitaed what the UN decsribes as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

80% of the population – more than 24 million people – are said to be dependent on humanitarian assistance or protection.

More than 70,000 people are believed to have been killed since 2015, according to UN estimates.