Yemen’s Houthi leader threatens to hit back over Saudi blockade

The leader of Yemen's Ansarullah movement, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, has promised retaliatory attacks in response to a land, aerial and naval blockade imposed on his impoverished country by a Saudi-led military alliance.

Addressing his supporters via a televised speech from the Yemeni capital Sana’a on Thursday, Houthi warned against “tightening the blockade.”

Riyadh imposed a tight blockade on nearly all Yemen’s air, land and sea ports after Yemeni forces on November 5 launched a solid propellant and Scud-type Borkan-2 (Volcano-2) missile against King Khalid International Airport, located 35 kilometers north of the Saudi capital Riyadh, in retaliation for Saudi’s devastating aerial bombardment campaign against Yemen.

“Should the blockade continue, we know what (targets) would cause great pain and how to reach them,” he said.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of the Houthi movement supporters gathered in the Sabaeen Square of Sana’a on Thursday afternoon to commemorate the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), heeding a call to attend the event.

The rally came after late night mediation attempts between supporters of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and the Houthi Ansarullah movement failed to reconcile both sides.

Yemeni security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said deadly clashes between Houthi Ansarullah fighters and Saleh’s supporters continued for a second day on Thursday.

The officials said Ansarullah fighters moved against forces loyal to Saleh while accusing the latter of fomenting a coup with the help of the United Arab Emirates.

It appeared the clashes began on Wednesday evening with a dispute over the capital's Saleh Mosque, where Houthis wanted to hold festivities for Prophet Muhammad's birthday.

The skirmishes killed nine Ansarullah fighters and five loyalists to the former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Saudi Arabia has been incessantly pounding Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstate Hadi, who is a staunch ally of the Riyadh regime.

More than 12,000 people have been killed since the onset of the campaign more than two and a half years ago. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country's infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble due to the war.

The Saudi-led war has also triggered a deadly cholera epidemic across Yemen.

According to the World Health Organization’s latest count, the cholera outbreak has killed 2,167 people since the end of April and is suspected to have infected 841,906.

On Sunday, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that more than 11 million Yemeni children in Yemen are in acute need of aid, stressing that it is estimated that every 10 minutes a child dies of a preventable disease there.

Read more:

• 'Over 11 million Yemeni children in dire need of aid'

Meanwhile, the United Nations has described the current level of hunger in Yemen as “unprecedented,” emphasizing that 17 million people are now food insecure in the country.

It added that 6.8 million, meaning almost one in four people, do not have enough food and rely entirely on external assistance.

A recent survey showed that almost one third of families have gaps in their diets, and hardly ever consume foods like pulses, vegetables, fruit, dairy products or meat.

More than 3 million pregnant and nursing women and children under 5 also need support to prevent or cure malnutrition.

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