Saudi-led coalition denies targeting family home in Yemen

DUBAI: The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen denied on Tuesday that it had targeted a home, after a health official said nine civilians were killed in an air strike. Three women and six children were killed on Friday in the northwestern Saada province in an air strike on their home, the head of the local health department Dr Abdel-Ilah al-Azzi said.



"Colonel Turki al-Malki, official spokesman for the coalition to support legitimacy in Yemen, denied that coalition forces targeted a house in the Muhaddah area southwest of Saada," it said in a statement posted on Saudi press agency SPA. Malki said the coalition was coordinating with its allies in Yemen's internationally recognized government to investigate the incident and accused their foes in the country's armed Houthi movement of using civilian infrastructure to store weapons.



A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in a civil war in Yemen in March 2015 and has launched thousands of air strikes against the Iran-allied Houthi movement. Rights groups say the attacks on clinics, schools, markets and factories may amount to war crimes. At least 10,000 people have been killed during Yemen's war, according to the United Nations. Saudi Arabia denies deliberately targeting civilians.