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Rockets hit Saudi border town as Yemen war flares anew

29 August 2016 22:23 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Yemeni Houthi forces are again firing rockets at this corner of southern Saudi Arabia, ending a lull of several weeks and complicating efforts to revive talks on ending Yemen's 18-month-old civil war, APA reports quoting Reuters.

This month's collapse of negotiations on the Yemen conflict - which like the Syrian civil war pits allies of Saudi Arabia against those of its regional rival Iran - is taking a toll in the Saudi city of Najran, albeit on a much smaller scale than in Yemen itself.

Last week, one rocket fired by the Iranian-allied Houthi movement from northern Yemen landed in Najran, which lies 30 km (20 miles) from the border. It hit a car scrap yard, killing five Saudis and two Yemenis as they were driving past.

Another hit a Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) power station in Najran on Friday, spilling diesel from a punctured tank into acrid black lakes coating the surrounding streets.

On Saturday, nine-year-old Mahdi Saleh Abbas sat lying in a hospital bed with bandages over his eyes and shrapnel wounds pockmarked on his face. His cousin Yehyia, 3, had died that morning after a Katyusha rocket landed outside their home.

"They were playing. They're kids. It was normal," said Mahdi's father, Saleh, standing over his son's bed.