20 killed as Saudi-led forces fight Houthi border advance,

Helicopters and fighter jets
belonging to a Saudi-led coalition on Sunday
repelled Yemeni Houthi fighters who were
pressing a six-day-old offensive to seize Saudi
territory, residents and Saudi state television
said.
Two residents told Reuters that 20 Houthi
fighters had been killed at the southern border of
the Saudi provinces of Najran and Jizan, while
Saudi state television put the number of Houthi
dead at 50.
The Houthis and allied fighters loyal to former
president Ali Abdullah Saleh have been trying to
capture Saudi territory since March, when a
Saudi-led alliance of Gulf states intervened in
Yemen to try to reverse the Houthis' seizure of
the capital and restore Saleh's Gulf-backed
successor, President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Hundreds of Houthi-aligned forces launched a
major offensive on the border on Tuesday,
capturing three Saudi outposts near Najran and
destroying armored vehicles, according to the
Houthi-run Saba news agency.
Further south, the coalition carried out dozens of
air strikes in Yemen's central Taiz and Marib
provinces. Medical sources and residents said
one strike had hit a home in Sirwah, Marib, killing
10 civilians.
The United Nations says that at least 5,700
people, nearly half of them civilians, have been
killed and 2.3 million displaced since the Saudi-
led coalition began conducting air strikes.