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Yemeni forces kill 120 Saudi forces in ballistic missile strike

Friday, 18 December 2015 11:26 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 19 December 2015 1:44 AM ]

A member of the Saudi forces stands at a military base in Yemen's embattled southern city of Aden on September 28, 2015. (AFP)

Yemeni forces say they have managed to kill 120 troops working for Saudi Arabia spearheading a war on Yemen in a ballistic missile attack in the country’s central province of Ma'rib.

The Yemeni army, backed by popular committees loyal to the Houthi Ansarullah movement, targeted a military camp with a Tochka ballistic missile on Friday afternoon, Yemen's Arabic-language al-Masirah news website reported, adding that a number of Saudi soldiers were among the dead.

Earlier in the day, Yemeni forces also launched two other ballistic missiles towards military bases in Saudi Arabia's southwestern Najran region. One of them, a Tochka missile, was intercepted by Saudi forces in the Yemeni airspace and fell in the vicinity of Ma'rib city. The other one, a Yemeni ballistic missile named Qaher 1, hit a desert area eastwards of the city of Najran.

According to the Saudi Press Agency, the Saudi Coalition Forces Command confirmed the news in a statement without mentioning the number of casualties and the extent of damage inflicted.

Yemenis carry out these attacks in retaliation for Saudi strikes, launched with the aim of undermining Houthi Ansarullah movement and bringing back to power the country’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.

*This handout picture released by UN Photo shows unidentified members of a delegation at the opening of Yemen peace talks on December 15, 2015 in Magglingen, northen Switzerland. (AFP)*

Meanwhile, tribal sources in the province of Jawf said on Friday that pro-Hadi militants seized control of the provincial capital of Hazm, taking advantage of the UN-backed ceasefire amid ongoing peace talks on the conflict in the Arab state.

The developments occurred while a seven-day ceasefire was supposed to be in place since Tuesday. The truce was declared by the UN to pave the way for Yemen’s Ansarullah movement and representatives of the former government to engage in peace talks in the northern Swiss village of Magglingen.

*Yemeni men gather around a crater caused by a Saudi airstrike in the capital, Sana’a, November 29, 2015. (AFP)*

On Friday, Saudi fighter jets also violated the ceasefire and hit a residential neighborhood in the al-Kitaf district of Sa’ada some 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Sana’a, leaving 23 people dead.

More than 7,500 people have been killed and over 14,000 others injured since the strikes began in March. The Saudi war has also taken a heavy toll on the impoverished country’s facilities and infrastructure.

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