RIYADH — A senior Saudi officer and another border guard were killed in a gun battle after a landmine blast along the frontier with Yemen, the Interior Ministry said on Saturday. Col. Hassan Ghasoum Aquili and Deputy Sergeant Abdulrahman Mohammed Al-Hazazi died late Friday in Al-Harth sector of Jazan region and four other guards were lightly wounded, the ministry said in a statement. Aquili is one of the most senior Saudi officers killed since March when an Arab coalition launched airstrikes to fight Houthi rebels in Yemen. The landmine blast damaged vehicles patrolling the border district, the ministry said. After backup arrived, “they were subject to heavy shooting from several locations inside the Yemeni border,” sparking a firefight, it said. In June, a Saudi lieutenant colonel died in a landmine blast in Jazan, while a general in August became the highest-ranked Saudi fatality when he was killed in cross-border fire. Around 70 people have been killed in Saudi Arabia from border shelling and skirmishes since the coalition campaign began. Soldiers have accounted for most of the border casualties. The pro-government forces got a boost earlier this week with the return of Yemen's President Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi. The Houthis, who control much of Taiz province, have over the past weeks laid siege to the city of Taiz, Yemen's third-largest, where pro-government troops have set up camp. The Houthis on Wednesday raided three international aid convoys traveling to war-torn Taiz with much-needed medicine and food from the Red Sea port of Hodeida. “It is almost impossible to send aid to Taiz,” said Hassan Boucenine of the Geneva-based aid group Doctors Without Borders, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres or MSF. “Until a couple of weeks ago, you could send some during the day, but not anymore,” Boucenine added. As a result, Taiz residents now have “no medicine or vegetables,” said human rights activist Abdel-Baset Al-Samei. Ezz Eddin Al-Asbahi, a minister for human rights in Hadi's Cabinet, denounced in Geneva on Friday “the crimes and violations by the Houthis and (ousted president Ali Abdullah) Saleh's forces ... taking place in Taiz.” The rebels fighting there “aim to sow hatred,” the minister added. The Shiite rebels and pro-Saleh forces are “punishing the city for rebelling against them.” — Agencies
