Yemen army advances despite Saudi-led assault

Yemen’s army has made significant gains across the country’s west coast, despite an unrelenting Saudi Arabian-led assault.

On Thursday, Yemen’s al-Masirah television network published a video showing the soldiers’ staging counterattacks against the positions of Saudi-led militants.  

It reported that the army had managed to retake several strategic positions and hills along the coastline, adding that one counterraid had killed 15 of the mercenaries and injured 20 more in the Derihemi District in the area.

The retaliation led to the destruction of more than 12 military and armored vehicles along various frontlines, including six anti-mine Oshkosh vehicles.

The network added that “tens” of the mercenaries had died as the army foiled their advance in the al-Wazi'iyah District of Ta’izz Province, which lies in the extreme southern tip of the maritime stretch.

Another military vehicle was destroyed in a retaliatory strike that hit the vicinity of Saudi Arabia’s Najran region on the border separating the kingdom and the impoverished country.

Saudi-led attacks

Meanwhile, one civilian was killed in Saudi airstrikes against a fuel station in the western al-Hudaydah Province. Back-to-back explosions resulting from aerial and mortar attacks also rang out northwest of capital Sana’a.

The kingdom and its allies have been attacking Yemen since March 2015 to return its former Saudi-allied officials to power. The casualties of the war are believed to be above 600,000 people. The war has also taken Yemen to the edge of famine.

The allies have been targeting the port city of al-Hudaydah in the west coast since last month.

Hudaydah takes in the bulk of Yemen’s food and fuel imports. The army and its allies have put up considerable resistance in the face of the assault amid warnings that the country would face outright famine if the port is rendered dysfunctional.

Also on Thursday, Yemen's Defense Minister Mohammed Nasser al-Atifi warned Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which has been Riyadh’s main ally in the war, against prolonging the invasion.

Al-Atifi said the Yemeni army would face the invaders with “a series of surprises," Yemen’s official Saba news agency reported.

He accused the Saudi-led coalition of committing “systematic war crimes," saying those crimes would not go unpunished.

The official hailed the army’s gains, “promising to liberate the rest of the homeland from the hands of foreign invaders,” the agency added.

"We have repeatedly warned the coalition leadership of continuing arrogance against the Yemeni people," he said. "We will defend Yemen, its sovereignty and dignity until achieving a complete victory," the minister noted.

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