Shia fighters seize military base on Saudi soil

Houthi fighters say they have captured a military base in the Saudi Arabian territory after accusing the kingdom of allowing Yemeni troops to use its soil as a launchpad for attacking their positions.

According to a statement by the Shia resistance movement, the fighters managed to seize Jebel al-Dukhan base near the Saudi border with Yemen after hours of heavy fighting.

Houthi fighters had earlier warned Saudi Arabia against meddling in Yemen's internal affairs by allowing the Yemeni army to use the base.

"We advise the Saudi regime to remain impartial and not allow the Yemeni army to use its territories to attack us, because we would be otherwise forced to retaliate," it added.

Yemeni officials, however, have dismissed the allegations as "mere fabrications", claiming that Jebel al-Dukhan base belongs to Yemen.

"They are trying to bring Saudi Arabia into the problem ... Jabal al-Dukhan is a Yemeni area," an unnamed Yemeni official said.

The Shia fighters in northern part of the country, who have been under intense government attacks since August 11, had earlier accused the Saudi Arabia of planning to form a militia to fight them on both sides of the Saudi-Yemeni border.

The military offensive against the Shia fighters has so far left hundreds of people, mostly civilians, dead. It has also displaced tens of thousands of people, forcing them to live in refugee camps.

While the Shia fighters say they are defending themselves against social, economic, political and religious oppressions, the government accuses them of seeking to restore a religious leadership which ended in a republican coup in 1962.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=110325§ionid=351020206.