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SAN’A, Yemen – Saudi Arabia sent fighter jets and artillery bombardments across the border into Yemen on Thursday in a military incursion apparently aimed at helping its troubled neighbor control an escalating Shiite rebellion, Arab diplomats and the rebels said.
The Saudis – owners of a sophisticated air force they rarely use – have been increasingly worried that extremism and instability in Yemen could spill over to their country, the world’s largest oil exporter. The offensive came two days after the killing of a Saudi soldier, blamed on the rebels.
Yemen denied any military action by Saudi Arabia inside its borders. But Yemen’s president is a key ally of the Saudis, making it highly unlikely the kingdom would have launched the offensive without tacit Yemeni agreement.
A U.S. government official said the Yemenis were not involved militarily in the fighting. The official spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The offensive immediately raised concerns of another proxy war in the Mideast between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally. Shiite Iran is believed to favor the rebels in Yemen while Saudi Arabia, which is Sunni, is Iran’s fiercest regional rival.
The rebels, known as Hawthis, have been battling Yemeni government forces the past few months in the latest flare-up of a sporadic five-year conflict. They claim their needs are ignored by a Yemeni government that is increasingly allied with hard-line Sunni fundamentalists, who consider Shiites heretics.
The rebels said the Saudi airstrikes hit five areas in their northern stronghold Thursday, but it was not possible to independently verify the reports.
They said there were dead and wounded, and that homes were destroyed.
“Saudi jets dropped bombs on a crowded areas including a local market in the northern province of Saada,” Hawthi spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Salam told The Associated Press. “They claim they are targeting al-Hawthis, but regrettably they are killing civilians like the government does.”
He said the attacks were followed by hundreds of artillery shells from the border.
The fighting is more than 600 miles from Saudi Arabia’s oil fields on the kingdom’s eastern Persian Gulf coast. But northern Yemen overlooks the Red Sea, the world’s busiest route for oil tankers.
Two Arab diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Saudi Tornado and F-15 warplanes had been bombarding targets inside Yemen since Wednesday afternoon, inflicting significant casualties on rebels.
