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Bahrain fighter jet crashes

Technical error to blame; pilot survives while on mission to fight Houthis.

Riyadh: A Bahraini fighter jet taking part in the Saudi-led coalition battling rebel forces in Yemen crashed on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia due to a "technical error," the alliance said.
The F-16 jet crashed in the kingdom's southwestern Jazan region near the border with Yemen, the coalition said in a statement on the official SPA news agency.
Bahrain's military confirmed that the jet crashed "while carrying out its national duty in defending the southern borders" of Saudi Arabia.
The pilot was "saved and is in good health", it said, adding that the plane's wreckage had been found and that an investigation had been launched.
The crash comes a day after Bahrain said that three of its soldiers had died "in an incident" along the Saudi border with Yemen.
It did not say how or when they had died.
Meanwhile, the rebel sabanews.net website said that insurgents fired a "ballistic missile" early on Wednesday on the southern Saudi port of Jizan, which they claimed "precisely hit its target".
But the coalition said that Saudi Arabia's defence forces safely intercepted the missile, destroying the warhead as well as its launcher in Yemen, according to a statement on SPA.
The rebels have intensified rocket attacks across the Saudi border during the past week, prompting the coalition to threaten severe reprisals.
The United Nations estimates that nearly 6,000 people have been killed in fighting across impoverished Yemen since March, roughly half of them civilians.
Months of UN-brokered mediation efforts have failed to bear fruit, with the latest round of peace talks earlier this month ending without solution.
Rebels and government loyalists accused one another of repeatedly violating a week-long ceasefire designed to coincide with negotiations.
Militant groups have exploited the chaos to make sweeping gains, and the UN has warned that 80 per cent of Yemenis are on the brink of famine.
The Saudi coalition began bombing raids in March on Houthi rebels who had seized Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and forced the internationally recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee. It has supported forces loyal to Hadi with air strikes, ground troops and weaponry, in addition to training.

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