[Al Arabiya Latest] Yemen's army continued a near three-week-long offensive on Shiite northern rebels on Saturday as officials said the army had inflicted heavy losses on their strongholds in Saada region and surrounding areas.Yemen's air force has bombarded Zaidi rebels' positions in al-Talh, in Saada, while troops destroyed other positions and arms caches in the district of Malaheez, also in Saada, a military spokesman told Saba state news agency.
Television footage showed warplanes striking targets in the rugged mountains and salvos of rockets being fired by a line of launchers.
The Zaidi rebels -- also known as Huthis -- meanwhile claimed in a statement late Friday that warplanes have been targeting civilian neighborhoods and camps of displaced people in Saada, which is near the Saudi border.
| These are Yemeni pilots, for goodness' sake -- do let's have realistic expectations of their abilities. |
Rebels also claimed capturing an undetermined number of soldiers and destroying two tanks in an attack on an army point in Maqash, near the city of Saada.
The military spokesman claimed that the army killed several rebels in the same clash in Maqash, adding to confusion about the developments on the ground amid a lack of independent sources of information.
The army's "Operation Scorched Earth" has entered its 18th day. There are no reliable sources on the numbers of casualties, but rebels say dozens of civilians have been killed.
| That would be implied in the title "Scorched Earth". |
President Ali Abdullah Saleh vowed on Thursday to crush the rebellion within weeks.
The government had offered a six-point plan to end the fighting but the rebels dismissed the offer, recalling that a Qatari-brokered peace deal reached in June 2007 had never been implemented.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said last week that around 35,000 people have been displaced by the clashes.