Riyadh, August 1 (RHC)-- Saudi state media say at least four Saudi soldiers have been killed and eight others injured in retaliatory attacks by Yemeni forces against the Asir region in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi media, citing an Interior Ministry official, said that the Yemeni army and allied Popular Committees targeted the Saudi military base of al-Misal in the Dhahran al-Janoub region of Asir on Friday, killing at least four Saudi military officers and wounding eight others.

According to the reports, Yemeni forces also targeted a Saudi military vehicle in the Tevan region in Southern Jizan.

I n a separate development, Yemen’s al-Masirah TV reported that army and popular forces further targeted a Saudi military post southeast of the border city of Najran, destroying an arms depot and a considerable amount of military equipment.

The developments came as at least four Yemeni civilians were killed earlier on Friday in a fresh round of Saudi airstrikes against various regions across Yemen.

The Saudi warplanes carried out ten airstrikes against multiple areas in the Dhi Na’im district of the southern Yemeni province of Bayda, killing an unspecified number of civilians, al-Masirah reported.

Saudi Arabia launched its military aggression against Yemen on March 26 – without a UN mandate – in an effort to undermine Yemen’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and also restore power to the country’s fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.

Rupert Colville, the spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated on July 21 that at least 1,693 civilians had been killed and 3,829 others injured in the Arab country since March 26. However, local sources put the death toll at much higher.