Three Saudi soldiers were killed and four reported missing in fighting to retake a border town that rebels from neighbouring Yemen had seized last week, officials said yesterday. The Huthi rebels claimed to have shot down a Yemen military aircraft, although officials in the capital said that the fighter crashed because of a technical fault.

Saudi aircraft launched strikes on rebel positions in northern Yemen last week after the rebels took the town of Jabal Dukan and another village close to the frontier. Saudi officials said that about 40 rebels were killed in the raids.

The violence has threatened to drag Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, into a battle between the Yemen Government and a small but determined group of Shia Muslim fighters in the north of the country, who have been pushed up to the Saudi border by a three-month government offensive.

The rebels accuse Saudi Arabia of siding with the Yemen Government, allowing it to attack from Saudi territory, while itself launching attacks on rebel positions. Prince Khaled bin Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz, the Saudi Assistant Minister for Defence and Aviation, said his forces had retaken Jabal Dukan, and calm returned to the area yesterday.

He said that, in addition to the three deaths, 15 soldiers had been wounded — but he denied Huthi claims that the missing troops had been taken captive.

The growing instability in Yemen is worrying many in the region, with fears that the insurrection in the north, coupled with a separatist movement in the south and a growing al-Qaeda presence in the fiercely tribal country, could draw Saudi Arabia into conflict. Officials in Sanaa have in the past accused Iran of backing the Shia rebels, seeking to extend its influence and destabilise Saudi Arabia, a close US ally.

The Shia rebels started fighting the Yemen Government of Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2004, saying they had been marginalised by the Sunni administration.

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