Death toll rises to 73 in Houthi strike on Yemen training camp in deadliest attack in months
CAIRO (AP) — The death toll from a Houthi missile strike on a government military camp in southern Yemen rose to 73 people, all new recruits, making it the deadliest strike since fighting in the country began escalating three months ago, a senior Yemeni government official said Tuesday.
The recruits were all aged between 18 and 20, and some were still missing a day after the Iranian-backed rebels hit the al-Alam training camp in the southern province of Shabwa with ballistic missiles, Shabwa governor Awad Ibn al-Wazir told The Associated Press.
Monday's strike was part of a recent surge of fighting in Yemen, which started when forces from the internationally recognized government and Saudi-led coalition launched airstrikes on Houthi-held Sanaa International Airport in July, shattering a 2022 ceasefire deal that largely stopped fighting in the country's civil war.
Britain announced on Tuesday that it is expanding its military support for Saudi Arabia against the Houthis to include “defensive” air patrols by Royal Air Force jets.
A Houthi missile hit a residential area in the besieged city of Taiz on Tuesday, killing two teenage girls and wounding six other people, local authorities said. Several buildings in the city’s Seina area were also damaged, according to provincial authorities.
The Houthis have besieged Yemen’s third-largest city as part of their monthslong offensive against Yemeni government forces, repeatedly targeting it with missiles and artillery.
The rebels have largely encircled the city and cut off most supply routes from government-held areas, putting civilians at “grave risk,” U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk said Tuesday. The U.N. warned that the siege has sent prices soaring, leaving many residents without food and other necessities.
“Humanitarian aid must be immediately allowed to enter the city and its passage must be facilitated. Civilians wishing to leave must be allowed to do so freely and safely,” Türk said.
He urged the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces to avoid using explosive weapons in areas where they could hit civilians and civilian infrastructure.
The Houthis have also fired missiles and drones on Saudi Arabia, which has struggled to counter the attacks, even with far superior U.S.-supplied arms.
Tom Barrack, the U.S. envoy to Syria and Iraq, told the Global Security Forum in Doha, Qatar, that while he understood that “Saudi Arabia is in a very difficult position,” the United States was not prepared to send troops to help.
“I think the president has been clear that he supports Saudi Arabia, and the backing that they need logistically we'll supply, but America getting involved in a ground kinetic battle somewhere else seems fruitless,” said Barrack, who is also the U.S. ambassador to Turkey.
U.K. Defense Secretary Wes Streeting said the British government would expand its support to Saudi Arabia to include defensive patrols by RAF jets to protect Saudi cities from attacks but would not strike Houthi targets.
It means the British planes would attack missiles or drones in the air, but Streeting said they would not strike Houthi targets on the ground. Britain had already offered to help with in-air refueling of Saudi planes.
The strike on the al-Alam camp hit while recruits were lining up in formation for a training session. Videos from the area circulated online and analyzed by The Associated Press showed many motionless bodies lying on the sandy ground of the camp.
The strike also wounded more than 200 other recruits, the governor said.
The casualties were new recruits from across Shabwa being trained to provide security in the province and not for combat operations, he said.
“This had nothing to do with front lines,” he said. “They had not attacked anyone or advanced against anything. It was only to protect the security of their province.”
Another government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, said several suffered serious injuries and were transferred to hospitals in other provinces in life-threatening condition. He said at least 15 of the recruits killed were from a single Yemeni tribe, Awlaqi, and another tribe, Maraziq, lost 16 of its members in the strike.
The Shabwa provincial government said in a statement Monday that the Houthis fired three ballistic missiles on the camp. The Houthis claimed the attack, saying they had killed and wounded dozens but did not provide further details.
The camp, previously used by a militia backed by the United Arab Emirates, is in the Jardan district, north of the provincial capital, Ataq. It sits on a crucial supply route to the government-controlled province of Marib.
Shabwa, Marib and neighboring Hadramawt province form what has been dubbed the Yemeni government’s “triangle of power,” a strategic area that contains the country’s oil and gas production facilities.
Saudi authorities issued an attack warning for the capital area late Tuesday morning. An explosion was then heard in northern Riyadh, where King Khalid International Airport is located. Repeated Houthi attacks this month have forced the airport to suspend operations.
The all-clear was given shortly afterward, and Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis.
Yemen plunged into civil war in 2014, when the Houthis seized Sanaa and much of northern Yemen and forced the government into exile.
A Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year in an attempt to restore the government to power. The conflict killed more than 150,000 people and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
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El-Deeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers David Rising in Bangkok and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this story.
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