Sunday, 23 August 2020_Yemen has warned the Saudi-led coalition waging war on the country of “great [impending] pain,” as the aggressor countries ramp up their strikes.
Yemeni Defense Minister Major General Mohammad Nasser al-Atifi said Yemen’s allied defense forces were prepared to take their counterstrikes to the “stage of great pain” for the aggressor countries, Yemen’s al-Masirah television network reported on Saturday.
“The countries of the aggression are the ones who started this war on our country, and if it continues, we will control the end of this war,” Atifi said.
The Saudi-led coalition invaded Yemen in March 2015 to subdue a popular uprising that had toppled a Riyadh-friendly regime. The major aggressor countries are Saudi Arabia itself and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The United States provides intelligence and logistical assistance, including with the provision of advanced weaponry.
The Yemeni minister said, “We are in an advanced stage of readiness, capable of confronting the technology of aggression” and negating its effects.
Saudi-led escalation
Al-Masirah also reported on Saturday that the Saudi-led coalition had carried out as many as 42 new air raids in Yemen’s northern al-Jawf and Ma’rib Provinces over the previous 24 hours.
The invaders also struck Sa’ada Province — which is situated to the west of al-Jawf — twice during that same period.
Yemen’s Liaison and Coordination Officers’ Operations Room also said that the aggressor countries had committed 79 violations of a ceasefire for the vital port city of al-Hudaydah in the west within the same time span.
The operation room monitors an agreement reached in Stockholm in 2018 that obliges the Saudi-led coalition to stop its attacks against Yemen and respect a ceasefire for Hudaydah.
Yemen fights back
Amid the escalation, the Yemeni defense forces successfully thwarted an attempted advance by the coalition in the southwestern al-Dhale Province, fighting off the invaders for seven straight hours and killing and injuring dozens of them.
A spokesman for the Saudi-led forces, Turki al-Maliki, said the Yemeni forces had launched drone and missile counterstrikes against Saudi Arabia, and he claimed one explosives-laden aerial vehicle traveling toward Saudi Arabia’s southwestern Jizan region had been downed on Sunday.
Daesh ringleader in Yemen killed
Separately, the Yemeni military said it had delivered a heavy blow to Saudi-backed terrorists during a recent operation in the southwestern al-Bayda Province.
The operation killed Daesh’s ringleader in Yemen, Abu Walid al-Adani, alongside four other ranking members of the terrorist group, al-Masirah said.
The network identified the others as Adani’s administrative officer, the outfit’s “security chief,” and “head of finance,” as well as one of the founders of the terrorist outfit in the country.
Spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces Brigadier General Yahya Saree had on Friday said the al-Bayda operation targeted “al-Qaeda and Daesh [terrorists], who enjoyed the support of the Saudi-led coalition.”
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