Hizbullah Denies Party Member Killed in Yemen
Hizbullah denied on Saturday media reports that any of its members had been killed in Yemen where a Saudi-led coalition is stepping up air raids on allies of Iran-backed rebels.
“The Saudi Asharq al-Awsat daily and some Saudi and Lebanese news outlets have claimed that a Hizbullah member had been martyred in Yemen,” said the party's press office in a statement.
The terse statement added that these reports are “totally baseless.”
But it stopped short of confirming whether any of its members are fighting in Yemen.
Last month, a Gulf diplomatic official said that according to estimates, there are 5,000 Iranians, Hizbullah and Iraqi militia on the ground in Yemen.
Hizbullah is now militarily involved in Syria, where it is bolstering the embattled regime, and reportedly in Iraq.
A months-long rebellion by Shiite Huthi fighters in Yemen escalated into a regional conflict last month, when the coalition led by Saudi Arabia began conducting air strikes on rebel-held territory.
Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has stressed in a speech that Saudi Arabia will be roundly "defeated" in its campaign, which he called "unjust" and "illegal.”
According to al-Mustaqbal daily Saturday, several Hizbullah fighters had been killed in Yemen.
Sources told the newspaper that Hizbullah's involvement in battles in Sanaa is “possible because several of its fighters and experts, who hold the Lebanese nationality, were in Yemen's Saada before the rebels seized swathes of territory in Yemen since they entered Sanaa last September.
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