kayhan.ir

News ID: 82640
Publish Date : 09 September 2020 - 21:55

Yemeni Drones Hit Saudi Airport for Second Day

SANAA (Dispatches) -- Yemen’s forces targeted and hit military and sensitive objects in Saudi Arabia’s Abha international airport with drones early on Wednesday, the military spokesman Yahya Sarea announced on Twitter.
He said a squadron of domestically-manufactured Sammad-3 combat drones struck with great precision their targets.
The retaliatory attacks, he said, will continue as long as the Riyadh regime presses ahead with its military aggression and siege against its impoverished southern neighbor.
On Tuesday, Saudi warplanes hit a truck carrying food supplies in the Mahliyah district of Yemen’s strategic central province of Ma’rib, leaving a number of civilians dead and injured.
 Yemeni forces retaliated, aiming a number of drones at Abha airport that put it out of action for several hours.
Abha airport, near Saudi Arabia’s south-west border with Yemen, has been a regular target for Yemeni drones and missiles over the past two years.
Yemen has been mired in conflict since Saudi Arabia launched an invasion in March 2015 to restore the former Yemeni government.
Cross-border attacks by Yemeni forces have escalated since late May when a truce prompted by the coronavirus pandemic expired. In late June, missiles reached the Saudi capital Riyadh.
On Friday, the deputy foreign minister of Yemen’s National Salvation Government based in Sanaa warned that Al-Qaeda forces were joining Saudi-led mercenaries in the strategic central Ma’rib province.
According to Yemeni media reports, a large number of Al-Qaeda terrorists have joined the Saudi-led forces in Ma’rib from various provinces as the kingdom braces for a looming Yemeni operation that seeks to liberate the strategic region.
In recent days, the Yemeni army backed by Houthi fighters has accomplished new victories in their battle to liberate Ma’rib province.
Fearful of an imminent defeat, the Saudi-led coalition has sent additional military reinforcements into Ma’rib. But its campaign has been set up by widespread defections among the mercenaries.
With the Saudi campaign mired by a quagmire, tensions have also erupted between Saudi-backed militants and UAE-backed separatists in southern Yemen, leading to violent clashes between them.
The Yemeni administration on Wednesday suspended all United Nations flights to the capital Sanaa as Saudi Arabia blocks commercial vessels in the Red Sea port of Hudaydah.
The decision, which the administration blamed on a fuel shortage, comes as Saudi Arabia holds 21 commercial vessels in Hudaydah port, preventing more than 500,000 tonnes of fuel from entering the country.
The government said the suspension took effect on Wednesday. "Our inventories are very scarce...we have been waiting for three months, now we have reached a dangerous level,” said Khaled al-Shayef, managing director of Sanaa airport.
"We have informed the UN....but we haven’t heard from them so far.”
The Yemeni foreign ministry sent a letter on Aug. 30 to the United Nations saying that for the airport to continue servicing its flights, the organization must provide the airport with 30,000 liters of diesel, 15,000 liters of petrol and 3,000 liters of fuel oil for other equipment, sources familiar with the matter said.
Yemen has blamed the Saudi-led coalition of waging economic warfare on the impoverished country by holding UN-cleared commercial vessels in Hudaydah port.
The Red Sea city is the entry point for more than 70% of Yemen’s imports of commercial goods and aid.
As of Sept. 3, 21 vessels have been cleared by the Djibouti-based UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism but held by Saudi warships stationed off Hudaydah.
The vessels carry a total of 525,000 tonnes of oil products including diesel, gasoline and liquefied natural gas, UN sources said.  
Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen in 2015 to try to restore former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi’s government to power but the war, which has killed 100,000 people, has been in stalemate for years.
In Sanaa, dozens of cars formed long queues where drivers could wait for up to 48 hours. Fuel rationing imposed by authorities restrict private cars to a maximum of 40 liters of gasoline per week.
"We are enduring severe hardship. I have been queuing since yesterday and my turn hasn’t arrived yet and the ration is not enough anyway,” said Hassan al-Ghile, a taxi driver.
"We are calling on politicians, the UN and the world to end the blockade on the Yemeni people: Have mercy, have mercy!” Ghile said.