Sanaa, October 02: Yemeni Shiite rebels shot down a government MiG warplane which was raiding their strongholds in the northern region of Saada on Friday, rebels and a military commander said.
The Zaidi rebels, also known as Huthis, said in a statement that the jet was downed “this morning in the Shaaf area of Saada province, while it was bombing civilians in villages and markets.”
A military commander said the aircraft was “flying at low attitude” when it was hit.
However, a senior Yemeni official said that the “MiG 21 fell because of a technical problem and in an area where there is no combat,” rejecting the rebel claim to have shot it down.
Troops continue to press their seven-week-old offensive against the Huthis in the northern mountains, with no sign of the conflict ending.
On Wednesday, 28 rebels were killed in clashes near the town of Saada, the centre of the region of the same name which borders Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, five other rebels and four soldiers are reported to have been killed in fighting in the Harf Sufyan district of Amran province, on the road linking the capital Sanaa with Saada, and the scene of heavy fighting.
The army launched Operation Scorched Earth on August 11 in an attempt to finally crush an uprising in which thousands of people have been killed since it first broke out in 2004.
Journalists are not allowed to enter the area where the fighting is taking place, and there has been no reliable count of casualties.
The United Nations estimates that 55,000 people have fled their homes because of the conflict.
The authorities accuse the rebels of seeking to restore the Zaidi Shiite imamate that was overthrown in a republican coup in 1962, triggering an eight-year civil war. The rebels deny the charge.
A minority in mainly Sunni Yemen, the Zaidis are the majority community in the north. President Ali Abdullah Saleh is himself a Zaidi.
—Agencies