Top Houthi commander killed in Yemen airstrike

By Ali Oweida

MARIB, Yemen

A Houthi commander was killed in a Saudi-led coalition airstrike in Yemen's northwestern Hajjah province on Wednesday.

Taha Mahtouri was killed in a raid carried out by coalition warplanes on his whereabouts in the province’s Al-Jar area near Saudi border, a local Yemeni source with the pro-government sources told Anadolu Agency.

The source said that Mahtouri was the second high-ranking commander of the Houthis in Hajjah province and had close ties with Iranians.

Yemen has been racked by chaos since 2014, when the Shia Houthi group and their allies overran capital Sanaa and several other parts of the country, forcing President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and his Saudi-backed government to temporarily flee to Riyadh.

In March of last year, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive military campaign in Yemen aimed at reversing Houthi gains and restoring Hadi’s embattled government.

In April, the Yemeni government and Houthis engaged in UN-brokered peace talks aimed at resolving the conflict in the poor Arab country, which has killed some 6,400 Yemenis -- half of them civilians -- and forced some 2.5 million to flee their homes.