Tens of Saudi soldiers have been killed and a number of others captured during a retaliatory attack by tribal forces on a military site near the Yemeni border, sources say.

According to Yemeni reports, members of the Takhya tribe launched a surprise attack on a the al-Minare military base in Saudi Arabia near the northern Yemeni border city of Sa’ada on Sunday.

The attack was reportedly carried out in retaliation for repeated Saudi aerial assaults on the positions of the tribe and the slaughter of its members.

The tribesmen also seized large amounts of arms and ammunition, as well as a number of military vehicles from Saudi forces.

On Friday, three Saudi soldiers were killed and two others injured in a rocket attack by Houthi fighters in the southern Saudi province of Najran near the Yemeni border.

On April 3, two Saudi soldiers died during a border shootout between Riyadh’s troopers and popular committees loyal to the Ansarullah fighters, a day after a Saudi soldier lost his life and 10 others sustained injuries in a similar exchange of fire across the Yemeni border.

Saudi border guards stand on their vehicle along the Saudi-Yemeni border, in southwestern Saudi Arabia on April 6, 2015.

Meanwhile, an early Sunday Saudi airstrike on a village in Yemen’s Taizz Province claimed the lives of at least 15 people.

The exact number of casualties from the raid was not immediately available, but Arabic media sources said that rescue teams have recovered 15 bodies from debris following the airstrikes in ad-Dahirah, a town in the southwestern Taizz Province.

The Saudi airstrikes on the impoverished country have entered their 18th day.

Hundreds of civilians, including women and children, have been killed and thousands more wounded in the Saudi airborne attacks against Yemen

Saudi Arabia’s air campaign against Yemen started on March 26 without a UN mandate in a bid to restore power to Yemen’s former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.

DB/MKA/HMV