He heard the military helicopters coming, Dr Ali al-Wadiee told Seattle Times in al-Ruzamat, a small village amid the volcanic mountains of Yemen's remote north, near the border with Saudi Arabia. "There were several loud explosions," he said, but the doctor didn't know how many helicopters dropped their payloads in al-Naqa'ah on the Yemeni side of the border. In Saada province, 240 kilometers north of the capital Sana'a, nearly 700 people have been killed as fighting reignited in late January between the Yemeni army and a Zaidi Shi'ite insurgent group called Al Shabab Al Moumin (the Youthful Believers) - formed by now-deceased tribal chief Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi - after the rebels threatened to kill members of a small Jewish community in Saada if they did not leave the country within 10 days.
Wadiee was present in a small government medical center with four health workers when more than 100 dead were received in a period of three days. "About 90 of the dead were in the Yemeni army, and the others were in the Shi'ite insurgents," he said.