Yemen Army Seizes Control of Strategic Military Base in Ma’rib

According to local reports, the army troops and Houthi fighters managed to take the control of the strategic Maas base, which lies approximately 57 kilometers from the provincial capital city of Ma’rib, after exchanging heavy gunfire with pro-Hadi militants on Friday. 

The military base reportedly overlooks the city of Ma’rib, and was the last major bastion of the militants in the area.

As a result of the continued advances by the Yemeni army in Ma’rib, Saudi-led mercenaries’ morale has been sapped and they are in a state of sheer panic. A senior commander of the militants has reportedly ordered his henchmen in despair to sell their homes.

The sense of despair has been heightened by Saudi Arabia's continued withdrawal of its military forces and heavy armaments from Ma'rib, an indication that the provincial capital city of the same name is about to be seized by the Yemeni army and its allies.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a military onslaught against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi’s government back to power and crushing the popular Ansarullah movement.

The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives for over the past five years.