Five members of the Saudi border patrol had fallen martyrs following fierce rounds of fire exchange with armed militants attempting to illegally crossover the southern borderlines.

The clashes took place near the Yemen-neighboring Najran region, officials reported on Monday.

An official source at the Ministry of Interior stated that at 06:00am Monday, border guard patrols assigned to Al-Thar border checkpoint spotted an armed group of men trying to slip across the borders of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The infiltrators were not heading in one direction, they attempted to enter the Kingdom from different locations at the Khabash sector in the Najran region.

The abortive infiltrators were immediately confronted by the border guard who exchanged fire with them. Citing the support of ground forces, the infiltration attempt was successfully foiled, SPA reported.

Over eight-hours of armed confrontation resulted in the martyrdom of five border guard. They are Lance Corporal Sulaiman bin Saeed bin Sulaiman Al-Maeedi; Lance Corporal Musa bin Zain bin Mohammed Al-Marhabi; Lance Corporal Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Hasan Shraheeli; Lance Corporal Marzooq bin Saeed bin Ali Al-Salloum and Lance Corporal Jaber bin Ali bin Hussein Al-Alawe.