Army spokesman:

Yemeni attacks will continue as long as Saudi-led aggression, siege continue

The spokesman for Yemen's Armed Forces says Yemeni army troops and allied fighters from Popular Committees will continue their retaliatory attacks as long as the Saudi-led coalition persists with its military aggression and blockade on the Arab country.

News ID: 449727

Date: 24 March 2020 - 12:23

RNA - The spokesman for Yemen's Armed Forces says Yemeni army troops and allied fighters from Popular Committees will continue their retaliatory attacks as long as the Saudi-led coalition persists with its military aggression and blockade on the Arab country.

“As long as the siege and war against Yemen persist, army operations against the invaders would continue,” Brigadier General Yahya Saree said at a press conference in the capital Sana’a on Monday afternoon.

He added, “Yemen was once considered weak, but it is now completely different from what it used to be five years ago. Yemen is much stronger at present.”

“Yemeni armed forces were subjected to conspiracies and attempts aimed at its dismantlement. However, the forces managed to withstand the brutal attacks of aggressors over the past years and score victories,” Saree noted.

The senior Yemeni military figure then pointed to the popular support for Yemeni army operations, saying, “Many countries had predicted that we would fail; on the contrary we did neither fall short nor surrendered.”

Saree went on to say that the Saudi-led military alliance has conducted 257,882 airstrikes against targets across Yemen ever since it began its onslaught more than five years ago.

“The high number of the air raids attests to the fact that they have failed to bring us to our knees. Yemen is among the countries with large numbers of airstrikes. The criminal record of the Saudi-led coalition will be a dark page in the history of humankind, and some world leaders will pay dearly for the blood of Yemenis,” he commented.

Saree highlighted that Yemeni army soldiers and their allies have carried out 5,278 retaliatory attacks against designated strategic targets inside Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the region, of which 1,686 offensives were mounted in 2019 alone.

“Over the past five years, Yemeni forces also managed to thwart 5,426 attacks by Saudi-led coalition forces and their mercenaries. Yemeni missile units fired 1,067 ballistic missiles at various positions belonging to the Saudi-led alliance either inside or outside Yemen, of which 410 projectiles hit critical military sites deep inside Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,” he said.

Saree stressed that Yemeni armed forces have tested new air defense missile systems, which will be showcased in the near future, stating that Borkan (Volcano), Qaher, Badr, Quds-1, Nikal, Qassem and Zulfiqar missile systems have already been unveiled.

“Yemeni drone units have conducted more than 160 operations since last year, of which 37 were reconnaissance missions. The units carried out 94 strikes against enemy targets inside Yemen, and 66 ones inside Saudi Arabia,” the spokesman for Yemen's Armed Forces pointed out.

He added, “Yemeni air defense forces have intercepted and shot down 371 Saudi-led military aircraft, of which 53 were either fighter jets or Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, and the rest were reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles.”

Saree said Yemeni forces have performed 29 naval operations against Saudi-led warships, gunboats as well as frigates.

“Additionally, more than 8,487 Saudi-led tanks, armored vehicles, armored personnel carriers, vehicles, cannons and cranes have been destroyed over the past five years. Over 10,000 Saudi conscripts and officers have either been killed or wounded at the same time. A total of 1,240 Emirati soldiers and officers have either been killed or wounded as well,” he said.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past nearly five years.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have purchased billions of dollars' worth of weapons from the United States, France and the United Kingdom in the war on Yemen.

The Saudi-led coalition has been widely criticized for the high civilian death toll from its bombing campaign.

The UN says over 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger.

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