Bahrain mourns another soldier killed by Houthi drone near Saudi border, as peace talks continue
A fourth Bahraini soldier has died of his wounds after a drone attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeted forces patrolling Saudi Arabia’s southern border, the Bahrain Defense Force (BDF) announced on Friday.
First Lieutenant Hamad Khalifa al-Kubaisi “succumbed to the injuries he had suffered as a result of the Houthi act of aggression last Monday, while performing his sacred patriotic duties defending the southern borders of Saudi Arabia,” the BDF said in a statement⁴.
Al-Kubaisi was one of several Bahraini soldiers who were killed or wounded in the attack, which was blamed on the Houthi rebels, who control much of northern Yemen and have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition since 2015.
The attack, which took place near the border town of Jizan, threatened to derail recent efforts to end the war in Yemen, which has killed more than 230,000 people and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The Coalition
The Saudi-led coalition, which includes Bahrain and other Arab states, said it had “the right to respond at the appropriate time and place” to the attack, but did not announce any retaliatory strikes.
However, the coalition also sought to blame “elements” of the Houthi movement, not its overall leadership, for the attack, suggesting that it did not want to jeopardize the ongoing peace talks.
The talks, which resumed last week in Riyadh after a hiatus of several months, have been described as “positive” by both sides. They aim to reach a comprehensive political settlement that would end the war and address the humanitarian situation in Yemen.
The talks follow a series of confidence-building measures between the warring parties, such as a prisoner swap involving nearly 900 detainees in April and a ceasefire agreement in April 2022 that largely halted the violence.
The talks also come amid a thaw in relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which backs the Houthis and has been accused by Riyadh of supplying them with weapons and drones. The two regional rivals restored diplomatic ties earlier this year with the help of China.
The war in Yemen began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa and ousted the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015 to try to restore Hadi’s government, but failed to dislodge the Houthis from their strongholds.
The war has created a humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen, where more than 20 million people need urgent assistance and millions face famine and disease. The UN has repeatedly called for an end to the conflict and urged all parties to respect international humanitarian law and protect civilians.
