SANA’A (Dispatches) – Yemeni Armed Forces have carried out drone and ballistic missile operations in southern Saudi Arabia in retaliation for the Riyadh regime’s devastating military campaign and crippling blockade against its impoverished neighbor.
Arab media said early Sunday that the Yemeni operation targeted Najran province and the city of Khamis Mushait.
Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted three explosives-laden drones and one ballistic missile launched from Yemen towards the kingdom’s south.
Meanwhile, clashes between Yemeni forces and Saudi-backed mercenaries and militants have left over 100 killed in Ma’rib in three days, militant sources allied with former Saudi-aligned president Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi confirmed.
Yemeni forces intensified attacks against the militants in order to win back the strategic region.
Ma’rib is the Saudi-backed militants’ last stronghold in northern Yemen.
The most intense battles were erupted ferociously between the two sides as the Sana’a-backed armed forces backed by popular forces are inching closer to take control of key areas on the northern part of the oil-rich province, an anonymous source said.
He said the Yemeni army launched a major attack on the military positions of the militants, adding the battles are taking place fiercely on all fronts in the north, northwest and west of Ma’rib.
Saudi jets usually come to the rescue of the militants and carry out airstrikes against the army positions in Ma’rib.
Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network reported that Saudi warplanes conducted more than a dozen strikes on residential areas across the region late on Saturday.
Saudi Arabia, backed by the U.S. 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 Ansarullah movement, which significantly assists the army in defending the country against the invaders.
The Saudi-led military aggression has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead, and displaced millions of people. It has also destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases across the country.
Ma’rib and its surrounding oilfields are the last significant pockets of territory held by pro-Hadi militants in the north.