JIZAN - Saudi Arabia said Friday its jets and ground forces blasted Yemen rebels on the two countries' rugged border after being attacked and briefly occupied by the Shiite insurgents.
Sporadic shelling could be heard from the border around the Jebel al-Dukhan mountain and jets screeched overhead after two days of aerial bombing of the Shiite rebels, according to one journalist.
Saudi media reported several Saudi civilians had been killed by rebel shelling, while the rebels, forced close to the border by a Yemeni government military campaign, said they captured a number of Saudi soldiers.
"We will show images of them within hours," the rebels' spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam told Al-Jazeera television by telephone.
"Our demands are clear: there is no justification at all for this Saudi outrageous aggression," he said.
The Saudi air force struck the border zone on Wednesday and Thursday from southern Jizan province to "neutralise the firing by intruders" and to clear areas where they had encroached on the kingdom's territory, the government said.
Earlier, a government adviser said Saudi F-15 and Tornado jets had bombed camps of the Zaidi rebels inside Yemeni territory.
"We took back a small piece of territory and hit their camps around Saada," the rebel stronghold province over the border.
"They've been hit hard and it's ongoing," the adviser said, adding the move was taken with the knowledge of the Yemeni government.
It was the first acknowledged Saudi involvement in the Yemen government's three-month campaign against the rebels, also known as the Huthis, in the country's mountainous northwest corner.
The Saudis said they were responding to an incursion on Tuesday, when the rebels attacked a border post killing one Saudi border patrol and injuring 11 others.
The rebels also occupied two small villages before being driven out, the government said.
But the government statement maintained Saudi forces attacked rebel positions "inside Saudi territory" around the 2,000-metre (6,600-foot) Jebel al-Dukhan mountain, which straddles the border of Saada and Jizan.
A Yemen government spokesman also denied the Saudi military had carried out attacks inside Yemen territory.
Residents were evacuated from villages around Jebel al-Dukhan when the fighting began and relocated to tent camps further away from the border, according to reports.
Meanwhile other media reports said 40 rebels had surrendered to Saudi forces.
The Yemen government launched an intense military campaign against the rebels on August 11 that has left hundreds dead or injured and sent tens of thousands of people in the region fleeing their homes.
The rebels accused the Saudis of permitting Yemeni troops to operate against them from inside Saudi territory.
Saudi soldier killed in Yemen border clashes