Yemeni army soldiers, backed by fighters from allied Popular Committees, have shot dead four Saudi soldiers in the kingdom’s southwestern border region of Jizan, in retaliation for the Riyadh regime’s military campaign against the crisis-hit country.

A military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that Yemeni forces shot and killed four Saudi troopers in al-Tabbeh al-Hamra area east of Jahfan district of the region, located 967 kilometers southwest of the capital Riyadh, on Monday afternoon.

Later in the day, a Yemeni woman lost her life and another sustained injuries when a cluster bomb dropped earlier in a Saudi-led airstrike went off in an area of the Bart al-Marashi district of Yemen’s northern province of al-Jawf.

Speaking at a press conference in the capital city of Sana’a on December 3, 2018, the spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces said the Saudi-led military coalition continues to use internationally-banned weapons, particularly cluster bombs, in its aerial bombardment of residential neighborhoods in Yemen despite a global outcry against the use of such munitions by Saudi Arabia and its allies.

Brigadier General Yahya Saree stated that Saudi Arabia and its allies target citizens with cluster bombs and internationally-banned arms in the northern province of Sa’ada and Hajjah, leaving 1,124 people dead and 1,665 others wounded.

Saree pointed out that most of the victims are children, and that most of the cluster bombs are made in the United States.

Five Saudi-paid Yemeni mercenaries slain in friendly airstrike

Separately, five militiamen loyal to former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi have been killed and several others injured when Saudi military aircraft mistakenly targeted them in the Khabb wa ash Sha'af district of Jawf province.

A Yemeni military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were commanders among the slain Saudi mercenaries.

Moreover, tens of Saudi-paid militiamen were killed and injured when Yemeni army soldiers and allied fighters from Popular Committees repelled their attack on an area in the Nihm district of Yemen's province of Sana'a.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing Hadi’s government back to power and crushing the country’s Houthi Ansarullah movement.

Yemeni mourners walk out of a mosque carrying the coffin of one of the victims of a Saudi airstrike in the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah on December 10, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

According to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis.

The Saudi-led war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years.

A number of Western countries, the US and Britain in particular, are also accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance.