RIYADH
Egypt has launched its first airstrikes against positions belonging to the Shiite Houthi group in Yemen, a Saudi-led coalition said Thursday.
"An Egyptian warplane has carried out a raid against a Houthi target," coalition spokesman Ahmed al-Asiri said in a daily briefing.
Since March 25, warplanes from Saudi Arabia and several Arab allies have pounded Houthi positions across Yemen.
Al-Asiri said that Houthi militias had been "cut off from their leadership."
He went on to assert that airstrikes were targeting communications between Houthi leaders in capital Sanaa and those in the northern Saada province.
Fractious Yemen has remained in turmoil since last September, when the Houthis overran Sanaa, from which they have sought to extend their influence to other parts of the country.
Riyadh says the anti-Houthi campaign comes in response to appeals by embattled Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi – who is currently in Saudi Arabia – to "save the [Yemeni] people from the Houthi militias."
The Houthis, for their part, have decried the offensive, describing it as unwarranted "Saudi-American aggression" against Yemen.
Some Gulf States accuse Shiite Iran of supporting Yemen's Houthi insurgency.
