Yemeni army forces, supported by allied fighters from Popular Committees, have fired a domestically-designed smart missile at a position of Saudi-backed militiamen loyal to former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi in the country’s strategic western province of Hudaydah.
A Yemeni military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that a short-range and solid-propellant Badr P-1 missile hit the designated target with great precision.
The source added that the missile strike left a large number of Saudi mercenaries dead or injured.
The development came shortly after dozens of Saudi artillery rounds and mortar shells rained down on residential neighborhoods in the Razih and Shada'a districts of Yemen’s northwestern province of Sa’ada.
There were no immediate reports about possible fatalities or the extent of damage caused.
Separately, Saudi military aircraft launched a series of airstrikes against Shada’a district, with no reports of casualties quickly available.
On Friday, Yemeni army soldiers and their allies launched a Badr P-1 missile at the al-Mostahaddeth base in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern region of Najran. Scores of Saudi mercenaries were killed and injured as a result.
The Badr P-1 missile was unveiled during a ceremony in the Yemeni capital Sana’a on October 27. It is said to have a pinpoint accuracy of 3 meters.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of Hadi back to power and crushing the country’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement.
According to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis.
The Saudi-led war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years.
A number of Western countries, the US and Britain in particular, are also accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance.