Government forces kill 17 rebels in northern Yemen

September 10, 2009

The government of Yemen has said that it killed at least seventeen suspected members of a rebel group in the northern part of the country on Thursday.

The rebels, belonging to the Shi'ite Huthi group, were killed after violence overnight in Saada, a mountainous region in northern Yemen.

"The army and security forces have inflicted heavy losses upon the saboteurs and the rebels whether in terms of lives or equipment," a local official said as quoted by the Saba news agency.

Skirmishes between Yemeni forces and the Houthi rebels, named after their former leader Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, began during the 2004 Sa'dah insurgency. Clashes between the two have escalated in recent weeks, as the fighters attempted to overthrow the government.