Sanaa: 108 Yemeni rebels have been killed south of Marib, the Saudi-led coalition said on Wednesday, reporting a massive toll for the third consecutive day in fighting for the strategic city.The Iran-backed Houthis' latest casualties in the Abdiya district "exceeded 108", the coalition said, after announcing more than 156 dead on Monday and over 134 on Tuesday. The coalition, which relies heavily on airstrikes to combat the Shiite Houthis, didn't reveal how it arrived at those figures. They could not be independently verified by AFP.

"We have conducted 19 operations targeting (Houthi) militia members in the past 24 hours in Abdiya, destroying 12 of their military vehicles and their losses exceeded 108 members," the coalition said in a statement carried by state-run Al-Ekhbariya television. Fighting for Marib, the internationally recognised government's last bastion in oil-rich northern Yemen, has left heavy casualties since the rebels renewed their campaign to seize Marib last month.

The Houthis said they were on the edges of the city in a video statement on Tuesday. Adam Baron, a political analyst focused on Yemen and the wider region, said the rebels had made "significant" territorial gains. These operations aimed to stop the militias from entering the district, the coalition announced earlier. Meanwhile, the coalition said it carried on Tuesday 43 operations, killing 134 Houthis.  The coalition completed its sixth year of war in Yemen against the Houthis in March 2021 to support Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

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