SANA’A (Dispatches) –
Yemeni army forces, backed by allied fighters from Popular Committees, have made more significant gains in the country’s oil-producing central province of Ma’rib, seizing control over a strategic region south of the provincial capital.
Yemen News Portal website, citing informed sources requesting anonymity, reported that the Yemeni troops and their allies engaged in fierce clashes with Saudi-sponsored militants loyal to Yemen’s former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, and could take control of Falaj region in the Wadi Obaida district.
Yemen Shabab TV channel, affiliated to the Salafist and so-called al-Islah political party, later broadcast the funeral of dozens of Saudi mercenaries and militants who had been killed within past hours by the Yemeni army troops and Popular Committees forces.
Military sources said the Yemeni army forces and their allies have advanced towards important areas south and east of the Wadi Obaida district.
A day earlier, Yemen’s Armed Forces carried out an “exceptional” counterstrike against the southwestern Saudi region of Asir, killing and injuring “a large number of Saudi Arabian officers and forces.”
The Yemeni defense forces fired as many as three ballistic missiles during the Wednesday operation against the Dhahran al-Jonoub Province in Asir, the Yemeni Armed Force’s Spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced on his Twitter account.
He specified the exact target of the operation as a camp belonging to the Saudi army’s First Regiment.
Saudi Arabia and its allies launched a war against the Arab world’s most impoverished nation in March 2015. The war has been seeking to restore power in Yemen to Riyadh’s favorite officials.
The military campaign has stopped short of the goal, while killing tens of thousands of Yemenis and turning the entire country into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The Yemeni defense forces have, however, vowed not to lay down their arms until liberation of the entire country.
They have made significant advances towards ridding Ma’rib of the foreign military presence.