SANA’A (Dispatches) –
Yemen’s army and its allied Popular Committees have staged a combined missile and drone operation targeting Daesh terrorists as well as militants backed by the United Arab Emirates in the southern province of Shabwah.
The joint forces staged the operation on Thursday as the Emirati-backed militias were nearing the province’s Ain District, Yemen’s al-Masirah television network reported, citing Spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces Brigadier General Yahya Saree.
“UAE mercenaries were targeted accurately,” the official said, adding that “large numbers of the mercenaries were killed and injured in the joint operation.”
No earlier than on Wednesday, the allied defense forces pushed successfully back against the Abu Dhabi’s loyalists and Daesh terrorists, liberating hundreds of square kilometers of land in the province.
Announcing the victory, Saree said the Wednesday operation killed more than 515 militants and Daesh terrorists, including high-profile militant commanders, while over 850 others were wounded.
Shabwah lies directly south of the strategic Ma’rib Province, where the Yemeni forces have likewise been making great advances and are on the verge of liberating the provincial capital.
Meanwhile, fighter jets of the war coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, carried out new aerial assaults on residential areas in the Yemeni provinces of Sana’a and Hudaydah, killing at least two civilians.
Early on Thursday, Yemen’s al-Masirah TV channel reported that Saudi-led warplanes had targeted areas in Sana’a’s Sanhan district and inflicted damage to a hospital there.
Four hospital staffers were injured, two of them critically.
Similar airstrikes on Hudaydah’s al-Garrahi district also claimed the lives of two Yemenis, according to a separate al-Masirah report.
Saudi Arabia launched the devastating military aggression against its southern neighbor in March 2015 in collaboration with a number of its allied states and with arms and logistics support from the U.S. and several Western states.