Several Dead in Yemen from Thursday Retaliatory Raid

Yemen’s Health Ministry says at least six civilians, four of them children, were killed in raids launched on Thursday by a Saudi-led coalition battling Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. The air strikes, said to have been aimed at several military installations in or near the capital Sanaa, followed an unusual Houthi drone strike that damaged a key oil pipeline deep inside Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. Senior Saudi officials accused Iran of having ordered the attack, although both the Iranians and the Houthis denied this. A statement by the coalition said the retaliatory raids were aimed at “neutralizing the ability of the Houthi militia to carry out acts of aggression.” Sanaa and most of Yemen’s main population centers in the southwest are controlled by the Houthis, who forced President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee to Saudi Arabia. The Houthi television channel said at least 60 people had been wounded in Thursday’s air strikes.