Yemeni Official Says Seizure of UAE Military Vessel Sends Clear Warning to Israel
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A senior Yemeni official told Tasnim that the seizure of an Emirati ship in Yemeni waters sends a clear message to the Zionist enemy that the Israeli regime's hostile activities in Yemeni territories will not go unanswered.
The seizure of the Emirati ship carrying military equipment in Yemeni waters by the Ansarullah movement is one of the most prominent developments in the war in early 2022 after the spokesman for the Yemeni armed forces Brigadier General Yahya Saree said Monday that the country’s naval troops, backed by allied fighters from Popular Committees, have seized a United Arab Emirates-flagged cargo vessel as it was engaged in “hostile acts”, the senior Yemeni military official said.
He added that the ship was loaded with various munitions, and was seized off the coast of Yemen’s strategic western province of Hudaydah.
Spokesman for Yemen’s popular Ansarullah resistance movement, Mohammed Abdulsalam, has also underscored that the UAE-flagged vessel was captured while it was carrying out hostile acts in Yemeni waters.
Deputy Spokesman of the Yemeni Armed Forces and Popular Committees Colonel Aziz Rashid told Tasnim News Agency that the importance of the process of transporting the Emirati ship to the coast of Yemen lies in the fact that this action is a qualitative deterrent process based on accurate intelligence data, as well as monitoring and tracking the hostile activities in Yemeni territorial waters.
Aziz underlined that this operation is important and different, as the Emirati ship was seized “without direct military confrontation and casualties”, which exhibits the level of “confusion” among the leaders of the aggressive Saudi-led coalition.
He added that the media coverage and inaccurate information provided by the countries of te coalition are the proof of the shock and confusion that they are suffering from.
He stressed that the military and strategic importance of this unprecedented operation stems from several points, including:
- This qualitative operation by the Yemeni Army and People's Committees has possible military dimensions for the aggressors as well as a clear message to the Israeli enemy, meaning that in case of any military action against Yemen, the Israeli naval vessels and bases where the regime trains its mercenaries will be destroyed. And that the Zionist enemy’s existence in the Yemeni islands will not last long.
- The warning message by Yemeni army spokesman while announcing the detail of the operation showed that any retaliative action or hostile activity could lead to another qualitative operation by the Yemeni Army and People's Committees.
The Yemeni official also warned that the new year that began with an unprecedented operation will see more military operations with new dual military capabilities against the enemy’s strategically important sites in the coming days, if the enemy has not learned its lesson and does not realize its mistakes.
In September 2018, Yemeni naval forces, backed by fighters from Popular Committees, targeted a military vessel in a missile attack off the coast of the kingdom’s southwestern border region of Jizan, in response to the Riyadh regime’s atrocious military campaign against their war-ravaged homeland.
A military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Arabic-language al-Masirah television network at the time that the frigate was targeted with a guided missile.
Colonel Aziz Rashid said the attack was in retaliation for a Saudi airstrike against Yemeni fishermen off the coast of the strategic western province of Hudaydah, which killed five people.
On July 25 that year, Yemeni naval forces and their allies targeted and destroyed a Saudi military vessel in a missile attack off the coast of Hudaydah.
Saudi Arabia, backed by the United States and regional allies, launched the war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi back to power and crushing the Ansarullah movement.
The war has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead, and displaced millions more. It has also destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases there.
Despite heavily-armed Saudi Arabia’s incessant bombardment of the impoverished country, the Yemeni armed forces and the Popular Committees have grown steadily in strength against the Saudi-led invaders and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the country.
