Riyadh: A Saudi border guard was killed by a landmine explosion on the border with Yemen, the Saudi state news agency SPA said on Friday, quoting an interior ministry spokesman.
Al Houthi forces in Yemen, battling its internationally recognised government, have fired hundreds of mortars into southern Saudi Arabia and tested Saudi defences with guerrilla-style incursions since Riyadh intervened in Yemen’s civil war last year.
SPA said the mine exploded when it was struck by a vehicle transporting water along a border road on Thursday evening in Saudi Arabia’s Jizan region.
At least 110 people in Saudi Arabia have died due to Al Houthi attacks in the country’s south since the kingdom launched a coalition to battle Yemeni insurgents in March 2015.
Most Saudi casualties have been from cross-border rocket attacks or combat.
But there have also been previous deadly mine blasts in Jazan.
UN-led negotiations have failed to bring peace to Yemen, the poorest Arab country. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab neighbours intervened in the war after the Iran-allied Houthis overran the capital Sana’a in 2014, driving the government into exile.
At least 10,000 people have been killed.
The Saudis say their intervention, for which US military personnel are providing logistical support, has halted Iranian expansionism in Yemen.
