Head of Yemen's Supreme Political Council Killed in Saudi Raid in Hudaydah
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Head of Yemen's Supreme Political Council Saleh al-Samad was martyred after Saudi warplanes pounded the Arab country’s western province of Hudaydah, a report said.
In a statement released on Monday, the Supreme Political Council announced that Saleh al-Samad lost his life after the kingdom’s jets hit his residence in the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah on Thursday, Saba news agency reported.
The council also conveyed its sincere condolences to the Yemeni nation for the loss of Samad, an influential figure in Yemen’s resistance against a more-than-three-year-old war imposed by Riyadh on the impoverished country.
The council, Yemen’s top governing body, also appointed Mehdi Mohammad Hussein al-Mashat as its new chairman.
According to a report by al-Arabiya, a Saudi-owned pan-Arab television news channel, the Saudi-led military coalition that has constantly bombarded Yemen since 2015 had offered a 20-million-dollar prize for any information that could help uncover the location of Samad’s domicile.
However, the so-called military coalition has not yet commented on the incident.
Meanwhile, leader of Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah movement Abdul-Malik Badreddin al-Houthi, in a live speech, said all aggressor countries, including the US and Saudi Arabia, were responsible for the killing of Samad, and they must await the consequences of their crime.
He also stressed that such crimes against the Yemeni nation would not break the will of his people in defending their country against the so-called military coalition.
Elsewhere in his remarks, al-Houthi said that the top figure had been killed, along with six of his companions, after their convoy was hit by three Saudi airstrikes in al-Khamsin Street in Hudaydah.
He also called on the Yemeni people to participate in a massive demonstration, urged by Samad days prior to his demise, against the Saudi-led war.
Yemen’s defenseless people have been under massive attacks by the coalition for over three years but Riyadh has reached none of its objectives in Yemen so far.
Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out deadly airstrikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.
Over 14,000 Yemenis, including thousands of women and children, have lost their lives in the deadly military campaign.