Special to WorldTribune.com

Saudi Arabia intensified its air campaign on Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen this week in some of the deadliest fighting since the start of the war.

On May 28, Saudi coalition jets hit Houthis in Saada and Hajja near the Saudi border, according to Al Arabiya News Channel. That followed May 27 air strikes near the border and in the capital Sanaa in which 80 people were killed.

Artillery fire from Houthis on the Yemen side of the border on May 27 killed two Saudi border guards, Al Arabiya reported.

The deaths occurred when “military missiles from Yemen” struck their position at Zahran in the Asir border region, Saudi’s interior ministry said.

The Iran-backed rebels overtook Sanaa in September and spread through central and south Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition air strikes began on March 26 in an effort to restore Yemeni President Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi to power and prevent Iran from gaining a foothold in the region.

As many as 2,000 people have been killed and 8,000 wounded since the bombing campaign began in March, according to the World Health Organization. Half a million people have been displaced.

Reports from residents in areas hit on May 27 said as many as 40 people were killed, mostly civilians.

“Houthi gunmen were attacking Saudi border positions from this area but the coalition’s planes failed to hit the fighters and bombed civilians (instead),” one resident told Reuters.

Later on May 27, coalition air strikes hit a special forces base allied with the Houthis in central Sanaa, the Houthi-run state news agency Saba said, in an account confirmed by residents.

“Around 40 people were martyred and more than 100 others were wounded, according to a preliminary toll, in bombing by the Saudi aggression’s planes on the Sabaaeen area in the capital Sanaa today,” the Saba report said.

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