16 Houthi militants killed in Yemen's ongoing fighting

Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-05 00:37:29|Editor: yan
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ADEN, Yemen, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- A total of 16 Shiite Houthi militants have been killed in the ongoing fighting in Yemen, local sources said on Friday.

During the intense fighting near the western coast city of Mocha, the pro-government forces supported by the Saudi-led coalition made fresh advances against Houthis, killing 8 of them, state-run news agency Saba reported.

The Saudi-backed Yemeni troops have managed to take control over key military sites there, it added.

In the southeastern province of Shabwa, meanwhile, the Defence Ministry website reported that eight Houthi fighters were killed when Saudi-led airstrikes hit their moving vehicles in the province.

Earlier in the day, the pro-Houthi forces announced that a number of ballistic missiles were fired toward positions of the Saudi-backed Yemeni troops in the western province of Taiz.

Yemen's internationally-backed government, allied with a Saudi-led Arab military coalition, has for years been battling Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels over control of the country.

In March 2015, a Saudi-led Arab military coalition imposed an air and sea blockade to prevent weapons from reaching Houthis, who had invaded the capital Sanaa militarily and seized most northern Yemeni provinces.

Statistics show more than 10,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since the Saudi-led coalition intervened in the civil war in 2015.

The impoverished Arab country is also suffering the world's largest cholera epidemic, with about 5,000 cases reported every day.

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