Death toll rises to 73 in Houthi strike on Yemen training camp in deadliest attack in months

CAIRO — The death toll from a Houthi missile strike on a government military camp in southern Yemen rose to 73 people, making it the deadliest strike since fighting in the country began escalating three months ago, a senior Yemeni government official said Tuesday.

The recruits were all new recruits aged between 18 and 20, and some were still missing a day after the Iranian-backed rebels hit the al-Alam training camp in the southern province of Shabwa with ballistic missiles, Shabwa governor Awad Ibn al-Wazir told The Associated Press.

Monday's strike was part of a recent surge of fighting in Yemen, which started when forces from the internationally recognized government and Saudi-led coalition launched airstrikes on Houthi-held Sanaa International Airport in July, shattering a 2022 ceasefire deal that largely stopped active fighting in the country's civil war.

The Houthis have also fired missiles and drones on Saudi Arabia, which has struggled to counter the Houthi attacks — even with far superior U.S.-supplied arms.

Tom Barrack, the U.S. envoy to Syria and Iraq, told the Global Security Forum in Doha, Qatar, that while he understood that “Saudi Arabia is in a very difficult position,” the United States was not prepared to send troops to help.

“I think the president has been clear that he supports Saudi Arabia, and the backing that they need logistically we'll supply, but America getting involved in a ground kinetic battle somewhere else seems fruitless,” said Barrack, who is also the U.S. ambassador to Turkey.

In Britain, Defense Secretary Wes Streeting said the U.K. would expand its support to include defensive patrols by Royal Air Force jets to protect Saudi cities from attacks but would not strike Houthi targets. Britain had already offered to help with in-air refueling of Saudi planes.

The strike on the al-Alam camp hit while recruits were lining up in formation for a training session. Videos from the area circulated online and analyzed by The Associated Press showed many motionless bodies lying on the sandy ground of the camp.

The strike also wounded more than 200 other recruits, the governor said.

The casualties were new recruits from across Shabwa being trained to provide security in the province and not for combat operations, he said.

“This had nothing to do with front lines,” he said. “They had not attacked anyone or advanced against anything. It was only to protect the security of their province.”

Another government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, said several suffered serious injuries and were transferred to hospitals in other provinces in life-threatening condition. He said at least 15 of the recruits killed were from a single Yemeni tribe, the Awlaqi, and another tribe, the Maraziq, lost 16 of its members in the strike.

The Shabwa provincial government said in a statement Monday that the Houthis fired three ballistic missiles on the camp. The Houthis claimed the attack, saying they had killed and wounded dozens but did not provide further details.

The camp, which was previously used by a militia backed by the United Arab Emirates, is located in the Jardan district, north of the provincial capital of Ataq. It sits on a crucial supply line connecting to the government-controlled province of Marib.

Shabwa and Marib, along with neighboring Hadramawt province, make up what has been dubbed the Yemeni government’s “triangle of power” — a strategic area in which the country’s oil and gas production is located.

On Tuesday, authorities in Saudi Arabia issued an attack warning for the capital area in the late morning, followed by the sound of an explosion in northern Riyadh, where the King Khalid International Airport is located. The airport has come under repeated Houthi attacks this month, forcing the facility to suspend its operations.

The all-clear was given a short time later. Saudi Arabia said a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis had been intercepted.

Yemen first plunged into civil war in 2014, when the Houthis seized Sanaa and much of northern Yemen and forced the government into exile.

A Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year in an attempt to restore the government to power. The conflict created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, and killed more than 150,000 people.