Saudi Arabia Launches Airstrikes on Yemen after Rallies on War Anniversary
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Saudi Arabia carried out a fresh round of airstrikes and artillery attacks on Yemen’s strategic central province of Ma’rib and northern provinces of Hajjah and Sa’ada on Friday evening.
The attacks came after hundreds of thousands of people rallied across Yemen to voice support for the Houthi Ansarullah movement and pledge more resistance.
Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television news network, citing local sources, reported that Saudi war planes launched a dozen air raids on Medghal and Sirwah districts of Ma’rib on Friday evening.
No reports about possible casualties and the extent of damage caused were quickly available.
Over the past few weeks, Ma’rib has been the scene of large-scale operations by Yemeni troops and allied Popular Committees fighters against Saudi-backed militants loyal to Yemen's former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.
Sultan al-Sama'i, a member of Yemen's Supreme Political Council, said last week that the Yemeni army troops and Popular Committees fighters will liberate the neighboring provinces of Shabwah and Hadhramaut after establishing full control over Ma’rib, the main bastion of the occupation forces.
Saudi warplanes also struck Bani Hassan area in the Abs district of Yemen’s Sa’ada on Friday.
Saudi forces further launched a barrage of artillery rounds at the Baqim district in the northern Yemeni province of Sa’ada.
The Saudi attacks came after hundreds of thousands of people marched through Yemen's capital Sana’a and elsewhere in the country on the National Day of Resilience to show their support for Ansarullah as the Saudi war entered its seventh year.
Demonstrators held up pictures of Ansarullah leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, Yemeni flags and signs that read “Death to America, Death to Israel, Victory to Islam” during Sana’a rally.
The demonstrators, while making donations to Yemeni armed forces, announced that the decisive victory of the troops over the Saudi-led coalition of aggression is now closer than ever.
Yemeni Deputy Minister of Human Rights Ali al-Dailami sa said the Saudi regime’s pressure on international human rights bodies not to expose the extent of its military offensives in Yemen is a convincing proof that the kingdom has lost all sense of humanity.
“Saudis have no respect whatsoever for ethical and religious principles in light of their military failure in Yemen,” Dailami commented.
In the northern city of Sa’ada, people carried a large Yemeni flag and shouted slogans as local officials cheered the crowd from the main podium. Many people were holding assault rifles and traditional daggers.
Saudi Arabia, backed by the US and its other regional allies, launched a devastating war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing Hadi’s government back to power and crushing the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement.
Yemeni armed forces and allied Popular Committees have, however, gone from strength to strength against the Saudi-led invaders, and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the country.
The Saudi-led military aggression has left tens of thousands of Yemenis dead, and displaced millions of people. It has destroyed Yemen's infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases across the Arab-country.