ADEN, Yemen, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi on Thursday met with commanders of the joint forces of the Saudi-led Arab coalition, the state-run Saba News Agency reported.
President Hadi visited the command center of the joint military forces operating in Yemen at the Defense Ministry of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia.
Hadi, accompanied by Yemen's Vice President Ali Mohsen Saleh, held a meeting with Prince Fahad bin Turki bin Abdul Aziz, commander of the joint forces of the Saudi-led Arab coalition.
The meeting focused on "the military situation and the ongoing battles with the Houthi rebels in Yemen's northern provinces of Marib, al-Jawf and near the capital Sanaa," said the report.
Earlier in the day, a medical official anonymously told Xinhua that about 63 pro-government Yemeni soldiers were killed in recent fighting with the Houthi rebels near the country's capital Sanaa.
"The ongoing battles with the Houthis since Jan. 10 left around 50 soldiers killed while a Saudi-led airstrike mistakenly killed 13 others," said the official at the hospital of the government-controlled Marib province.
Scores of injured Yemeni soldiers are still receiving treatment at different hospitals of Marib, 170 km east of the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa, according to medical sources.
On Wednesday, the Houthi rebels said they had regained full control of the district of Nihm and other districts in the provinces of Marib and al-Jawf during a large military operation against the pro-government forces.
However, Yemeni pro-government military officials denied the Houthi claim as "an imaginary victory," noting the battles against the Houthis will be decisive in the coming days.
Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized control of much of the country's north and forced the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile.
