Houthi rebels killed in airstrikes in Yemen

Sanaa, Sep 16 (IANS)   The Yemeni government said in a statement, at least 20 Houthi rebel fighters have been killed in a series of airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition over the past 24 hours in Yemen's northwestern border city of Medi, on Saturday.

Ten rebels were wounded in the airstrikes that concentrated on the rebels' sites in south and southeast of the Red Sea port city, said the statement posted on the government official media outlets, Xinhua reported.

The airstrikes began early Friday morning and lasted until early Saturday morning, said the statement, citing a military official in the Yemeni military forces backed by the coalition.

Meanwhile, the government said it lost four soldiers and four others were injured in ground battles against the rebels in the same area, but said the airstrikes helped the government troops to repel the rebel ground attack.

Medi is located on the southern border of Saudi Arabia. The area has been the scene of almost daily fighting between the rival Yemeni forces since more than two years.

The sea around the city has been under the control of the naval coalition, while the Yemeni rival forces have been fighting on the opposite edges of the city over controlling the border region.

The civil war erupted in the Arab country in 2015, a few months after Houthi rebels seized control of the capital Sanaa and most of the northern provinces and ousted the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile.

The coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, intervened in March 2015 to defeat the rebels and reinstate Hadi as president.

Over 10,000 Yemenis, mostly civilians, have been killed, mainly by airstrikes, during the war.