Yemen's Houthis say leader's brother "assassinated"

A brother of Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, the leader of Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement which has been fighting a war against forces backed by a Saudi-led military coalition since 2015, has been "assassinated", the group said on Friday.

The Houthis, who are known by the family name of its late founder, took control of the capital Sanaa in 2014 after ousting an internationally recognized government now based in the southern port city of Aden. The war has killed tens of thousands and resulted in what the United Nations says is the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The Houthis say they are fighting corruption.

Ibrahim Badreddin al-Houthi was found dead in a house in Sanaa and the group has deployed additional forces around the city in response, a security source said. The Houthis' Interior Ministry put out a statement in which it blamed the killing on "the treacherous hands affiliated with the U.S.-Israeli aggression and its tools", without giving further details.

A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in 2015 in support of the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Repeated rounds of peace talks have made the little process.