SANAA (Dispatches) -- The Yemeni armed forces on Wednesday struck a Saudi oil tanker in the northern Red Sea, escalating a maritime blockade campaign that has now targeted eight Saudi vessels since its announcement on July 22.
Brigadier General Yahya Saree, spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, announced that the tanker “Wafa” was hit off the coast of Yanbu with “a number of ballistic missiles,” describing the strike as “precise”. 
The operation, Saree explained, was carried out “in implementation of the Yemeni Armed Forces’ decision to impose a maritime blockade on the Saudi enemy” and to reinforce the “blockade for a blockade” equation.
According to Saree, 29 Saudi oil tankers have been prevented from continuing their voyages and forced to turn back in the Red Sea and Arabian Sea since the blockade began. 
Following the tightening of the naval blockade from the Bab el-Mandab Strait, Saudi Arabia has begun diverting its oil tankers toward the northern Red Sea, prompting Yemeni forces to warn they will “continue and escalate in targeting Saudi oil tankers in the northern Red Sea to close all access points and prevent their passage”.
The escalation follows Saudi airstrikes on Sana’a International Airport last month that halted humanitarian flights carrying patients and stranded civilians. In response, Yemeni forces struck Saudi Arabia’s Abha International Airport and announced the naval blockade.
On Tuesday, a Saudi Arabian airport near the kingdom’s border with Yemen was knocked out of operation after a retaliatory strike by Yemen’s Armed Forces hits the facility’s main radar.
Reports said the operations at the Najran Airport have been “suspended indefinitely” with the targeted radar having sustained damage.
In a statement issued Wednesday, Yemen’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned that any “forward escape” by the Saudi regime aimed at escalating the situation “will be met with a comprehensive escalation that the kingdom will be unable to tolerate the consequences of”.
The ministry emphasized that the “blockade for blockade” equation “has been firmly established as an undeniable reality” and that Yemen resorted to this decision “after exhausting all other options to achieve its legitimate rights”.
The statement further asserted that Saudi Arabia’s attempts to “digest the shock and blow it has sustained have failed, and it is now sinking further into the quagmire of its crimes”. 
The ministry concluded by declaring that “the path of peace is clear, low-cost, and its outcomes are secure,” calling upon “the wise and prudent to guide the Saudi system toward the path of peace”.
President of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council Mahdi al-Mashat has previously warned that “should the aggression persist and the siege is not lifted, any dialogue and agreement will be nothing but an illusion and a mirage”.
The Saudi-led coalition imposed its blockade on Yemen as part of a military campaign launched on March 26, 2015, which has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths but failed to restore the former Riyadh-backed regime to power.