A soldier from Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council (STC) was killed in a drone attack Saturday evening blamed on Houthi rebels.
The STC said in a statement that a Houthi drone attacked one of its regiments on the Habeel Hanash front in the southern Lahj governorate, killing the soldier Fadl Al-Jabali.
In retaliation, the regiment launched intense artillery bombardment of Houthi militia sites from where the drone was launched, the statement added.
The UAE-backed STC group is frequently targeted in attacks often claimed by Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.
The STC controls much of southern Yemen and seeks to partition from the north, as the country previously was before unification in May 1990. Other parts of war-torn Yemen are controlled by forces loyal to the internationally recognised government or the Iran-backed Houthi movement, which occupies the capital Sanaa.
Fighting between Yemeni government forces and the Houthis has flared up again since the two sides failed in October to renew a UN-brokered truce, which initially began in April last year.
The Yemeni conflict has killed hundreds of thousands and the United Nations says it has resulted in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.