Army Special Forces have been secretly helping Saudi Arabia combat rebels in a brutal civil war in Yemen, The New York Times reported.

According to the Times, the Green Berets are helping locate and destroy caches of ballistic missiles and launch sites that Houthi rebels in Yemen are using to attack Riyadh and other Saudi cities.

The previously undisclosed operation seems to contradict Pentagon statements American military assistance to the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen is limited to aircraft refueling, logistics and general intelligence sharing, the Times reported.

Yemen has been torn by civil strife since 2014, when the Shiite Muslim rebels from the country's north stormed the capital, Sana. The Houthis, who are aligned with Iran, ousted the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the Americans' main counterterrorism partner in Yemen.

According to the Times, the Green Berets deployed to the border in December, weeks after a ballistic missile fired from Yemen sailed close to Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

"We are authorized to help the Saudis defend their border," Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of United States Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 13. "We are doing that through intelligence sharing, through logistics support and through military advice that we provide to them."

Officials said American support for the Saudi-led coalition against Houthi rebels, a campaign that includes the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Egypt, was initially outlined in a 2015 document known as the Rice memo, named after former Obama administration national security adviser Susan Rice.