This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/05/world/middleeast/27-soldiers-in-saudi-led-force-reported-killed-in-yemen.html

The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
27 Soldiers in Saudi-Led Force Reported Killed in Yemen Houthi Rebels Kill 45 Emirati Soldiers in Yemen Fighting
(about 4 hours later)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Twenty-seven soldiers from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were reported killed on Friday while taking part in the military campaign led by Saudi Arabia against Yemen’s Houthi insurgent group. It appeared to be the deadliest day for the Saudi-led forces since their offensive began six months ago. SANA, Yemen — The United Arab Emirates said on Friday that 45 of its soldiers were killed fighting the Houthi insurgents in a province east of Yemen’s capital, in a major setback for the coalition of Arab forces that have been trying for months to vanquish the rebels.
Saudi Arabia and a coalition of other Sunni Muslim Persian Gulf states have been fighting since March to restore Yemen’s exiled government and repel the Houthis, who are aligned with Iran. The Houthis took control of Yemen’s capital, Sana, last September. The death total was the largest in a single day for the military of the United Arab Emirates, the Persian Gulf nation that has assumed a central role in the Saudi Arabia-led coalition of nations seeking to restore Yemen’s exiled government to power.
The state news agency of the United Arab Emirates said on Friday that 22 Emirati soldiers were killed in Yemen, while Bahrain’s official news agency said five soldiers were killed while protecting the southern borders of neighboring Saudi Arabia. A statement carried by the Houthi-run news agency said that the deaths came after the rebels fired what it called a ballistic missile at a military base used by the coalition in Marib province, striking an arms depot and destroying other equipment, including Apache helicopters.
“A rocket and an explosion at a weapons cache has targeted the martyrs,” Anwar Gargash, the Emirati minister of state for foreign affairs, said on Twitter on Friday. Bahrain, another member of the Saudi coalition, said on Friday that five of its soldiers also had been killed.
The Houthis said they fired a rocket at a weapons cache in a camp used by gulf coalition forces in the central Marib area, killing dozens of Emirati and Yemeni soldiers and destroying a number of Apache helicopters and armed vehicles. The casualties undercut recent battlefield gains by the Saudi-backed forces as well as confident assertions by Yemeni government officials that the coalition was poised to rout the Houthis from their stronghold in the capital.
Residents in Marib said they saw fire raging at the camp and plumes of smoke. Yemen has turned into one of the region’s bloodiest conflicts since the Saudi-led forces began bombing the Houthis and their allies nearly six months ago.
Before the latest casualties, at least five Emirati soldiers had been killed in Yemen since the offensive began. The casualties reported Friday came at time when diplomats had been hoping to to move the antagonists closer to a cease-fire.
Militias and army units loyal to President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who is taking refuge in Saudi Arabia, have made advances toward the Houthi-controlled capital in the past two months. But the group remains ensconced in Yemen’s north, and military and civilian casualties mount daily. In a sign of how the conflict could quickly escalate, warplanes of the Saudi-led forces carried out some of the most intense airstrikes on the capital in weeks on Friday. They bombed military targets on the outskirts but also targeted the Defense Ministry, near Sana’s historic old city, a Unesco World Heritage site, sending residents of nearby buildings fleeing the area.
The coalition has been supporting anti-Houthi fighters with airstrikes, military training and the delivery of tanks and heavy artillery. The Saudi-led coalition began bombing Yemen in March after the Houthis, a northern rebel group, drove the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi from power and into exile. After months of a stalemated battle, Emirati soldiers played a critical role in shifting the war in favor of the coalition, including by helping anti-Houthi forces recapture Aden, a port city in Yemen’s south.
Gulf states regard the Houthis as a proxy of their archrival, Shiite Iran, while the Houthis say they are fighting a revolution against corrupt officials beholden to the West. The forceful military intervention by the United Arab Emirates, which has committed thousands of troops, was part of a broader push by the Persian Gulf monarchies to counter what they viewed as Iran’s backing of the Shiite-led Houthis.
The Houthis have long denied receiving significant support from Iran and said in their statement on Friday that the attack on the coalition base was “a legitimate response by the army and popular committees to the crimes and genocide committed by the Saudi aggression and its mercenaries.”