AMN / WEB DESK
Yemen’s Houthi rebel movement has confirmed that its Prime Minister Ahmed Ghaleb Nasser al-Rahawi was killed in an Israeli air strike earlier this week.
The Iran-backed group said several other senior officials were killed when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) targeted Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, on Thursday.
The IDF said at the time that it attacked a Houthi “military target” in the Sanaa area, giving no further details.
The Houthis have controlled much of north-western Yemen since 2014, after ousting the internationally recognised government from Sanaa and triggering a devastating civil war.
The Houthi-run news agency ran a statement from the defence minister shortly after it confirmed the prime minister’s death and quoted him as saying the group was ready to confront Israel.
The statement did not mention Thursday’s airstrike and it was unclear if it was made before or after the attack.
Ahmad Ghaleb al-Rahwi became prime minister nearly a year ago, but the de facto leader of the government was his deputy, Mohamed Moftah, who was assigned on Saturday to carry out the prime minister’s duties.
Rahwi was seen largely as a figurehead who was not part of the inner circle of the Houthi leadership.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets had struck a compound in the Sanaa area where senior Houthi figures had gathered, describing the attack as a “complex operation” made possible by intelligence-gathering and air superiority.
On Thursday, Israeli security sources said the targets had been various locations where a large number of senior Houthi officials had gathered to watch a televised speech recorded by leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi.