Bahrain F-16 crashes in Saudi near Yemen border

Riyadh: Saudi Arabia says a Bahraini pilot who was flying for a kingdom-led coalition battling Shiite rebels in Yemen has survived a plane crash caused by a technical failure.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency carried a statement from the kingdom’s military saying the F-16 crashed on Wednesday in Jizan province. It did not elaborate.

The Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s internationally recognized government has been battling the Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, since March. The United Nations says the civil war in the Arab world’s poorest country has killed more than 5,800 people since then.

Bahrain announced Tuesday that three of its soldiers were killed and others were wounded along Saudi Arabia’s southern border, without elaborating. Cross-border fire from the conflict has killed soldiers and civilians there in the past.

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