Yemen's Houthi rebels shot down Saudi helicopter

Yemen's Houthi rebels reported to have shot down a Saudi Apache helicopter near the border with their northern neighbor, killing two pilots a day after the Saudi-led coalition liberated more than 100 Houthi prisoners.

Yahya Sarea, a Houthi spokesperson, said on Twitter that "a Saudi Apache helicopter was shot down by a surface-to-air missile... and its two pilots were killed as it was fully destroyed." There was no immediate confirmation from the Saudi-led coalition conducting a punishing five-year military offensive in the poorest country in the Middle East to dislodge the Houthis.

About 128 Houthi rebels held in Saudi Arabia were released on Thursday and flew to Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. Around 2015 and earlier this year, they had been arrested in different parts of Yemen.

A senior official in Riyadh said this month that it had an "open channel" to insurgents as talks were gaining momentum to end the five-year war.

The crisis in Yemen started with the Houthi rebels taking over Sanaa in 2014, now occupying much of the north of the impoverished country.

In March 2015, the Saudi-UAE-led coalition intervened to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansur Hadi's internationally recognized government, which was forced out by the Houthis.

According to relief organizations, the five-year civil war has left tens of thousands of people dead, most of them civilians, and pushed millions to the brink of starvation in what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.