Dubai: Saudi Arabia does not have ‘formal’ troops on the ground in Yemen, said the Saudi ambassador in the United States, adding however that the option to send such troops remained on the table.
Ambassador Adel Al Jubair was speaking at a press meeting in Washington DC on the day that a Saudi soldier was killed, and 10 others wounded from fire across the border from Yemen. Despite coalition airstrikes, Al Houthi rebels yesterday also managed to take control of the presidential compound in the southern city of Aden, one of the few remaining strongholds of exiled president Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
Saudi civil aviation authorities announced the temporary suspension of international and domestic flights bound to and from the kingdom’s airports amid reports from the EFE news agency and several Yemeni news sites that dozens of Egyptian soldiers had disembarked at Aden’s port. There was no official comment on the matter from Egypt or the coalition.
Al Jubair also denied claims that the coalition bombed a milk factory and a refugee camp.