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News ID: 93764
Publish Date : 29 August 2021 - 21:42

Yemeni Strikes on Largest Base Kill Dozens of Saudi Mercs

ADEN (Dispatches) -- At least 30 militants were killed and 60 wounded on Sunday in strikes on Yemen’s largest military base controlled by forces of the Saudi-led coalition in southwest Yemen, a spokesman for the southern forces and medical sources said.
Southern forces spokesman Mohamed al-Naqeeb said armed drones and ballistic missiles were used in a spate of attacks on the Al-Anad military base. Yemeni officials usually characterize such strikes as retaliatory in response to airstrikes and shelling of cities by Saudi Arabia and its mercenaries.
Naqeeb said that between 30 to 40 militants were killed and at least 60 wounded, adding the death toll may still rise as rescuers were still clearing the scene.
The southern forces are part of the Saudi-led coalition waging a brutal war on the most impoverished Arab nation since 2015.
Two medical sources said several bodies had arrived at Lahj province’s main hospital along with another 16 wounded people.
Residents said that several loud blasts were heard in the Al-Anad area, which is located at some 70 km (43 miles) north of the southern port city of Aden.
Several other residents from the central city of Taiz said they heard ballistic missiles fired from launchers positioned in the eastern suburbs of the city which is held by the Yemeni army and its Ansarullah allies.
A coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates intervened in March 2015 to restore fugitive president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power in a matter of weeks but the ensuing conflict, now stalemated, has killed tens of thousands and caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The attacks came at a time when peace talks between the Saudi-led coalition and Yemenis, and backed by the United Nations, have stalled after both sides failed to reach a compromise deal and Saudi attacks have continued.
The talks are focused on steps to lift a blockade on Yemeni ports and Sanaa airport in return for a promise from the capital-based national government for truce talks.
In 2019, Yemen forces launched a retaliatory drone strike on Al-Anad during a military parade, with medics and government sources saying at the time at least six loyalists were killed -- including a high-ranking intelligence official.
Al-Anad, some 60 kilometers (40 miles) north of Yemen’s second city Aden, was the headquarters for U.S. troops overseeing a long-running drone war in the Middle East and beyond until March 2014 when it was overrun by the Yemeni army and its allies.
It was occupied by Saudi mercenaries in August 2015 as they invaded territory across the south with support from the Saudi-led coalition.
Sunday’s incident was one of the deadliest since December 2020, when blasts targeting self-proclaimed cabinet members backed by Saudi Arabia rocked Aden airport.
At the time, at least 26 people were killed and scores wounded in the explosions as Hadi’s “ministers” disembarked from an aircraft in the southern city.
At least three civilians lost their lives when Saudi border guards launched barrages of artillery rounds at two separate residential areas in Yemen’s mountainous northwestern province of Sa’ada.
Local sources told Yemen’s Al-Masirah television that a civilian was killed when projectiles fired by Saudi military

forces slammed into the Shada’a district of the province on Saturday.
Saudi troops also pounded Raqou area in the Monabbih district of the same Yemeni province, leaving two civilians dead.
Furthermore, forces of the Saudi-led military coalition and their mercenaries violated 338 times during the past 24 hours a ceasefire agreement between warring sides for the western coastal province of Hudaydah.
Yemen’s official Saba news agency reported that the violations included 13 reconnaissance flights over various regions, including Faza, Durayhimi, Jabaliya and Tuhaita districts, in addition to 206 counts of artillery shelling and 287 shooting incidents.