Report:

Yemen fires ballistic missile at base run by Saudi mercenaries

Rasa - Yemeni forces have fired a short-range domestically-manufactured ballistic missile at a military base run by Saudi-led mercenaries in Yemen’s southwestern province of Lahij, in retaliation for the Saudi regime’s campaign against the impoverished country, Yemeni media report.

News ID: 437742

Date: 17 May 2018 - 22:37

RNA - Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network, citing a military official, said that the short-range Badr-1 ballistic missile had targeted the al-Anad air base, a former US special operations forces facility, in the early hours of Thursday.

The report, however, did not give details on the extent of possible casualties and damage at the base.

The Saudi-led military coalition waging war on Yemen has not commented on the missile strike.

On Tuesday, the Yemeni army, supported by fighters from the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement, also hit the King Faisal military base in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern region of Jizan with a another Badr-1 missile.

The strike was conducted hours after the Yemenis launched a short-range Zelzal-2 missile at a gathering of Saudi-backed militiamen loyal to Yemen’s former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi in the al-Ghayl district of Yemen’s northern province of al-Jawf.

The Yemeni army has so far launched numerous missile strikes against military and economic targets inside Saudi Arabia; however, Riyadh often claims that it intercepts incoming Yemeni missiles, despite the existence of evidence to the contrary.

Saudi Arabia and its allies launched the war on Yemen in March 2015 in support of Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights announced in a statement on March 25 that the Saudi-led war had left 600,000 civilians dead and injured until then.

In one of the deadliest air raids, Saudi warplanes last month targeted a wedding ceremony in Hajjah several times, killing almost 50 people and wounding 55 others. Saudi jets also carried out raids on the ambulances transporting the casualties to local hospitals.

The Saudi-led countries have also blockaded the already-impoverished Yemen, causing widespread famine and food insecurity.

According to United Nations figures, a record 22.2 million people in Yemen are in need of food aid, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger.

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