JAZAN: Saudi armed forces will not enter Yemen, Prince Khaled bin Sultan, assistant minister of defense and aviation for military affairs, announced on Sunday. Giving Houthi rebels a stern warning, he said they would face death if they tried again to infiltrate into the Kingdom.
Speaking to reporters after inspecting armed forces along the Kingdom’s border with Yemen, Prince Khaled said soldiers would support the border guards in confronting the intruders.
He said civilians have been evacuated from areas surrounding the Khoba border post in order to facilitate the operation against the rebels. “Those who enter the area extending from the border for more than 10 km will be in a killing zone. In another words they have to either surrender or face destruction,” he explained.
“There is a clear instruction from Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, the commander in chief, that we should not step even an inch into another country and we should not allow anybody to encroach even an inch of our territory,” he said.
Referring to reports that the Houthi rebels were receiving assistance from Al-Qaeda terrorist network, the minister said he would class any intruders as gangsters. “The Interior Ministry will speak about whether these gangsters belonged to Al-Qaeda or not. For us any person who encroaches into the country will be dealt with force, irrespective of the group he belongs to.”
He said there was no plan to develop Khoba into a military region. “I came here to end the crisis and when we understand that the border guards are enough to (protect the area), we’ll just stand by behind them. However, we’ll be ready to intervene at any time.”
Jet ‘downed’
The Shiite rebels, meanwhile, said on Sunday that they had shot down a Yemeni combat aircraft near the Saudi border. “Our anti-aircraft batteries have shot down a military aircraft, which was bombing the village of Razeh,” rebel spokesman Mohammad Abdessalam told AFP.
A military source in Sanaa acknowledged a Russian Sukhoi bomber had crashed, but only because of “mechanical problems.” It is the third combat aircraft the Houthi rebels claim to have downed since the launch of the government offensive against them on Aug. 11. Yemen says all of the incidents were due to mechanical reasons.
On Wednesday Saudi Arabia unleashed F-15 and Tornado jets against rebel positions around the massive Jabal Dukhan mountain on the border in southern Jazan province. Ground troops and heavy long-range artillery lined the sides of the main road leading to the frontier town of Khoba at the foot of the mountain on Saturday as soldiers patrolled fields and inspected vehicles for rebel fighters. Prince Khaled called the Saudi response “a rebuke to intruders who had infiltrated the borders of the Kingdom.”
According to government and medical doctors in the region, seven Saudis have been killed in the fighting, including three security personnel and four women whose border home had been shelled. According to Asharq Al-Awsat Arabic daily, Saudi forces captured 155 rebels in the fighting.
Morocco, Bahrain and Kuwait, on Sunday, denounced the rebel attack and expressed solidarity with Saudi Arabia.
Also on Sunday, Najran Gov. Prince Mishaal bin Abdullah instructed government officials to provide all assistance to Yemeni Haj pilgrims passing through the Wadeea and Khadra border points, en route to Makkah.
According to informed sources, Houthi rebels are recruiting women and children as suicide bombers to attack Saudi troops.
