Saudi jets raid Yemeni capital after drone shot down

Saudi warplanes have carried out a string of airstrikes against targets in the Yemeni capital city of Sana'a as relentless aggression against the impoverished Arab country continues.

News ID: 444011

Date: 24 March 2019 - 10:21

RAN - According to local reports, Saudi jets targeted al-Dailami airbase among other points on Saturday, without providing any information about the extent of damage.

The raids came after Yemen’s army, backed by fighters from popular committees, shot down a Saudi drone as it was on a reconnaissance mission in the north of the capital earlier in the day.

"Our air defenses shot down an MQ-1 Predator Drone in Hamdan district north of the capital Sana’a," said Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah movement, Saba news agency reported.

The MQ-1 is an American remotely-piloted aircraft built by General Atomics that was used primarily by the US air force and Central Intelligence Agency.

Some 20 spy drones have been shot down since the Saudi war on the impoverished country began more than three years ago.

Yemeni forces usually respond to Saudi airstrikes with rocket attacks on the gathering of troops and mercenaries in the kingdom’s southwestern Jizan region.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi back to power and crushing Ansarullah.

A number of Western countries, the United States and Britain in particular, supply the Saudi-led forces with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance.

On Monday, a British government minister admitted that his country is servicing fighter jets supplied to Saudi Arabia which are being used in an indiscriminate bombardment of civilians in Yemen.

Armed Forces Minister Mark Lancaster told the parliament that Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) was providing “engineering support”  and “generic training” to Saudi Arabian military in its war on its southern neighbor.

UK-supplied weapons and aircraft have repeatedly been used to bomb schools, hospitals and other types of civilian infrastructure in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country.

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