05/11/2009 Saudi jets pounded rebel camps inside Yemen Thursday and ground troops could move across the border against them after they killed a Saudi border guard, an informed Saudi source told AFP.
 
F-15 and Tornado jets have been bombing the positions of the Zaidi rebels near the border with southern Jizan province since Wednesday, the source said. "They've been hit hard and it's ongoing," he told AFP.
 
"This is not a hit and run, this is a sustained action" that could involve a ground incursion into Yemen to "clean out" the rebel camps in coordination with Yemen authorities, he said.
 
The assault was launched after a small group of Zaidi fighters entered Saudi territory Tuesday in the rugged Jebel al-Dukhan area and occupied two small frontier villages before being driven out by Saudi troops. "We took back a small piece of territory and hit their camps around Saada" in northwest Yemen, the source said.
 
The source also said that one and possibly two more Saudis had been killed in the fighting, and that the Saudi government was likely to issue an official statement on the unrest later Thursday.
 
Earlier Zaidi officials said that Saudi jets "had used phosphorous bombs" on them, but the allegation could not be independently verified.
 
The Saudi assault comes nearly three months after Yemen government forces launched a campaign on August 11 against the rebels, also known as Huthis, driving them across the mountainous landscape toward the Saudi border.
 
Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded in the ongoing clashes, and tens of thousands forced to flee their homes, resulting in a humanitarian crisis complicated by a dire shortage of food and other basic necessities.