SANAA: Yemeni troops have killed more than 100 rebels, including two of their commanders, in an operation to recapture a small town in the northern mountains, the government said Sunday.
“The bodies of more than 100 rebels have been recovered from the roadside outside the town of Harf Sufyan,” a government statement said.
“It seems that the bodies were those of the rebels who were trying to flee the town during a mopping-up operation over the past two days,” the statement said, adding that two of the dead were identified as commanders Mohsen Saleh Hadi Gawd and Salah Jorman.
There was no independent confirmation of the number of those killed in the operation in Harf Sufyan, 70 km north of the capital Sanaa.
The security forces succeeded in “totally purging the town of rebel elements in the past two days, forcing the rebels to surrender or flee,” the government statement said.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh pledged Wednesday to crush the rebellion in the north as the army pressed on with an offensive launched two weeks ago. The campaign, dubbed Operation Scorched Earth, aims to end once and for all a rebellion by Zaidi Shiite rebels, also known as Houthis, in the rugged mountainous region.
