Seven civilians dead as Yemen rocket hits Saudi: civil defence

RIYADH: A rocket fired by Yemeni rebels killed seven civilians inside Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the civil defence agency said.

It was the highest reported number of civilian casualties in the kingdom´s south since a Saudi-led coalition intervened 17 months ago in Yemen.

"It killed four citizens and three residents," the civil defence spokesman in Najran city said of the rocket strike, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

He said emergency personnel were called at 5:00 pm (1400 GMT) after a report of "a military rocket that had been fired from Yemen landing in Najran city".

Social media video purportedly from the scene showed fires burning and the ground strewn with debris across a wide area.

Two men lay apparently dead, one with blood pouring from beneath his head, beside a pickup truck.

"Najran is sad and hurt today," one local resident told AFP.

"We are worried but we are not afraid," he said, adding that the city has been targeted before.

The rocket hit a busy industrial-commercial area where many garages are located.

More than 100 civilians and soldiers have been killed in southern Saudi Arabia by retaliatory rocket strikes or skirmishes since the coalition began operations to support Yemen´s government against Huthi rebels.

Fighting along the border has intensified since the collapse of UN-brokered peace talks earlier this month.

Two civilians on the Saudi side of the border died in shelling last week, after months of relative calm.