Officials said this marked the first sustained air offensive by Saudi
Arabia since the 1991 war against Iraq. At the time, the Saudi air force
used F-15s and Tornados to protect the kingdom's air space as well as
counter invading Iraqi troops.
The Saudi military operation, directed by Deputy Defense Minister Prince
Khaled Bin Sultan, has combined air strikes with elite infantry units in the
mountainous region of Jabal Dukhan, which reaches 2,000 meters above sea
level. Officials said Saudi Special Forces were being fed data from
reconnaissance operations conducted by the F-15s.
"The Saudi Armed Forces have supported the Border Guards with a number
of armed units and they have been making concentrated air strikes on the
infiltrators' positions in Jabal Dukhan as well as other targets within the
area of operations inside Saudi territories," an official Saudi source said.
At the same time, Saudi aircraft were also helping relay information on
the whereabouts of Shi'ite rebels to artillery units. Officials said Saudi
artillery has quelled most of the fire by the Believing Youth on border
villages. They said the Shi'ite attacks were aided by Iran.
"The Houthi rebels [Believing Youth] now pose a grave threat to its own
internal security," Saudi analyst Yousuf Al Kowalit said. "The government of
Saudi Arabia will do whatever needed to protect its borders from such an
aggression."
The Saudi operation, launched on Nov. 4, was meant to counter a Shi'ite
rebel invasion of the border area. At one point, about 1,500 people fled
from six Saudi border villages and the Believing Youth captured a sliver of
the kingdom's Jazan region. For several days, the Shi'ites controlled two
villages.
"Border Guard patrols are carrying out their missions as per plans, and
the evacuated people could return to their native villages over the coming
few days," Saudi Border Guard Lt. Col. Salem Al Silmi said.
Silmi said the Border Guard was not searching for the Shi'ite rebels.
Instead, the Guard has been protecting civilian communities with the Saudi
military assigned to expel the Believing Youth presence.
Officials said the Saudi Interior Ministry has been operating the first
stage of a border security network to help identify and block infiltrators.
They said thermal cameras and sensors were relaying information on suspected
insurgents.
At the same time, officials acknowledged that Saudi fighter-jets were
attacking Believing Youth positions in Yemen. They said the operation was
conducted in cooperation with the regime of Yemen President Ali Abdullah
Saleh, which until now denied any direct Saudi military help.
"We took back a small piece of territory and hit their camps around
Saada," a Saudi government adviser said. "They've been hit hard and it's
ongoing."
Meanwhile, Yemen has lost another Russian-origin fighter-jet in its war
with Iranian-backed Shi'ite rebels.
Yemeni sources said Shi'ite rebels shot down a combat aircraft in Al
Malahaid, west of the war-torn Saada province. They said the aircraft was
one of the more advanced platforms in the Yemen Air Force.
"The pilot ejected in time and survived," a source said. "The plane
crashed and was destroyed."
The downing on Nov. 8 marked at least the third Yemen Air Force crash in
the north over the last month. The Yemeni military has acknowledged the
crashes, but insisted they stemmed from technical faults.
Later, a Yemeni military source identified the downed plane as the
Su-20. Sanaa procured nearly 50 Sukhois from the former Soviet Union in
1980.
The sources said the air crashes were linked to the supply of
surface-to-air missiles by Iran to the Believing Youth. They said Iran's
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hizbullah were training the Shi'ite
rebels to counter the Yemeni fighter-jets.