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At least 58 government troops were killed and dozens more wounded in Yemen on Thursday after Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched a wave of ballistic missile and drone attacks on military camps, a military source said, in what officials described as one of the deadliest single days of the country's civil war in four years.
The strikes hit government positions in central and eastern Yemen, marking a sharp escalation in hostilities between the Houthis and the internationally recognised government as the conflict increasingly intertwines with the wider Middle East war between the United States, Israel and Iran.
A military official told AFP that the rebels struck a camp in the al-Ruwaik area of Marib province, in central Yemen, along with positions in the Al-Abr and Al-Wadiah areas of Hadramawt province, near the Saudi border.
The deadliest single strike hit troops as they gathered for morning formation at the Marib camp.
A military source, who declined to be named for security reasons, said the attack killed and wounded at least 45 personnel. Medical sources had earlier put the death toll at 38 before the higher figure of 58 was confirmed.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group had targeted government positions with ballistic missiles and drones, naming Al-Ruwaik, al-Thaniyah and al-Abr among the areas struck.
He said the attacks were carried out in response to an alleged military buildup backed by Saudi Arabia, and warned the rebels remained "prepared to confront any escalation."
The defence ministry of Yemen's internationally recognised government said its armed forces would respond to the attacks "at the appropriate place and time."
A military official said Thursday's assault on troop camps was the worst in Yemen since 2022.
Yemen has been embroiled in more than a decade of civil war between the Houthis, who control the capital Sanaa and much of the populous north, and the Saudi-backed government, which holds much of the south.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and triggered a major humanitarian crisis.
Fighting had been largely frozen since a UN-negotiated truce in 2022 that continued to hold in practice even after its formal expiration.
That relative calm has unravelled over the past month, as Yemen became a new front in the broader Middle East war that has escalated around the US-Israel confrontation with Iran since fighting between Washington and Tehran erupted on February 28.
The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, upended the 2022 truce with the Saudi-backed government after welcoming an Iranian plane directly into Sanaa, triggering tit-for-tat attacks between the two sides.
The Houthis subsequently announced a maritime blockade of Saudi ports and began targeting Saudi tankers. Last month, the rebels killed 16 troops in an attack on government-aligned forces south of the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, according to two medical officials.
The rebels have escalated provocations against their Saudi-backed rivals in recent weeks, adding to instability across the region as the fallout from the US-Iran war continues to spread.
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