Missile attack on Yemen MP home kills two including child

DUBAI — A rebel missile attack on the home of a Yemeni lawmaker killed two of his relatives, authorities said on Thursday, drawing condemnation from the UN after a recent strike in the area left 116 dead.

Yemen's internationally recognised government — backed by a Saudi-led military coalition — has been battling the Iran-allied rebels since 2014, when they overran the capital Sanaa.

The attack on Wednesday night targeted the home of parliamentarian Mossad Hussein Al Sawadi in Marib province, east of the capital, killing his daughter-in-law and 16-year-old granddaughter, according to the official Saba news agency. 

"Sawadi was seriously injured along with three other members [of his family]," said Hussein Al Huleissi, director of the criminal investigation department in Marib.

"The strike destroyed the home completely and caused panic in the residential neighbourhood." 

United Nations envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths condemned the attack and called for a halt to the recent military escalation in Yemen, which comes after several months of relative peace.

"Targeting MPs and civilian areas is unacceptable and against international law," he said in a tweet.

The attack came after a missile strike blamed on the Houthis killed 116 people including civilians at a mosque in a military camp in Marib on Saturday.

On Thursday, authorities in Marib said they dismantled two Houthi-linked “cells” that took part in planning the strike.

The attack on the mosque, one of the bloodiest single incidents since the war erupted, came a day after coalition-backed government forces launched a large-scale operation against the Houthis in the Nihm region, north of Sanaa. 

Army spokesman Abdullah Al Shandaki told AFP on Tuesday that 72 Houthis had been killed in the fighting.

Saba said the fighting had continued into Thursday, and medical sources reported dozens of dead and wounded on both sides. 

Meanwhile, heavy fighting between coalition-backed government troops and the Houthis broke out in the northern province of Jawf on Thursday.

Since 2015, when Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the conflict, tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced in what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.