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Saudi Arabia escalates airstrikes in Yemen

Friday, 08 January 2016 11:07 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 08 January 2016 11:21 AM ]

A Yemeni man salvages documents from the rubble of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry building destroyed during Saudi airstrikes in Sana’a, Jan. 5, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Saudi aircraft have intensified their airstrikes in Yemen, targeting Sana'a for the second day after dropping cluster bombs on the capital.

The central Ma'rib province came under the heaviest of attacks and was targeted by 20 airstrikes on Friday, Yemen’s al-Masirah TV said.

Saudi jets bombed Sarvah in Ma’rib, causing extensive damage to the city’s infrastructure, the report said.

A residential area in Ta’izz Province was also hit, as well as a number of houses in al-Jawf Province.

According to Yemeni media, the house of a prominent cleric in the small town of al-Ghail in Jawf was also targeted.

Saudi warplanes also bombed Sana'a a day after carrying out dozens of airstrikes in what residents described as the heaviest aerial attacks yet in nine months of aggression.

The Human Rights Watch confirmed cluster bomb attacks against residential areas of the Yemeni capital, saying it could amount to "a war crime."

Al-Masirah TV also reported a Saudi Apache helicopter having crashed in Yemen’s northwestern Hajjah Province.

It was not immediately clear whether the chopper had been shot down by Yemeni armed forces or crashed due to technical reasons.

The Yemeni army and allied forces, meanwhile, clashed with Saudi forces at the al-Tawl border crossing, which links the northwestern province of Hajjah to Saudi Arabia’s Jizan.

Yemeni workers inspect the damage at a factory after it was destroyed by Saudi airstrikes in the capital, Sana’a, December 30, 2015. (Photo by AFP)

On Tuesday, Saudi warplanes destroyed a rehabilitation center for the blind in the Alsafyeh neighborhood of Sana’a.

A spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights later confirmed that the aerial raid had struck the al- Noor Center for Care and Rehabilitation of Blind in the capital.

The regime in Riyadh began the military attacks against Yemen on March 26, 2015. The airstrikes are supposedly meant to undermine Houthis and restore power to Yemen’s fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.

More than 7,500 people have been killed and over 14,000 injured since the Saudi airstrikes began in late March.

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