Saudi-led coalition warplanes struck Houthi militias in Yemen on Thursday after shellfire from the Yemeni side of the border killed two Saudi border guards on Wednesday, Al Arabiya News Channel reported. The airstrikes targeted Houthis in the towns of Saada and Hajja near the Saudi border, Al Arabiya added. Wednesday's deaths occurred when "military missiles from Yemen" struck their position at Zahran in the Asir border region, Riyadh's interior ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. The two dead guards bring to at least 30 the number of people, military and civilian, killed in the Saudi border area since a Riyadh-led coalition began air strikes against Iran-backed Shiite Houthi militias in Yemen in late March. The air campaign led to deadly skirmishes between the militias and Saudi forces along the border, but many of the recent Saudi casualties have been civilians killed by cross-border barrages. Inside Yemen, weeks of fighting between pro- and anti-government forces have killed almost 2,000 people and displaced more than half a million, according to the United Nations.
