Saudi Arabia carries out attacks after tens of thousands rally across Yemen on war anniversary

Saudi Arabia has carried out a fresh round of airstrikes and artillery attacks on Yemen’s strategic central province of Ma’rib and northern provinces of Hajjah and Sa’ada after hundreds of thousands of people rallies across Yemen to voice support for the Ansarullah movement and pledge more resistance.

Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television news network, citing local sources, reported that Saudi war planes launched a dozen air raids on Medghal and Sirwah districts of Ma’rib on Friday evening.

No reports about possible casualties and the extent of damage caused were quickly available.

Over the past few weeks, Ma’rib has been the scene of large-scale operations by Yemeni troops and allied Popular Committees fighters against Saudi-backed militants loyal to Yemen's former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Yemeni armed forces, allies will soon liberate Ma’rib, other regions: Houthi

A top member of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council says Yemeni armed forces will soon liberate the strategic central province of Ma’rib along with other regions in the country.

Sultan al-Sama'i, a member of Yemen's Supreme Political Council, said last week that the Yemeni army troops and Popular Committees fighters will liberate the neighboring provinces of Shabwah and Hadhramaut after establishing full control over Ma’rib, the main bastion of the occupation forces.

Saudi warplanes also struck Bani Hassan area in the Abs district of Yemen’s Sa’ada on Friday.

Saudi forces further launched a barrage of artillery rounds at the Baqim district in the northern Yemeni province of Sa’ada.

Yemenis voice support for Ansarullah, condemn Saudi war

The Saudi attacks came after hundreds of thousands of people marched through Yemen's capital Sana’a and elsewhere in the country on the National Day of Resilience to show their support for Ansarullah as the Saudi war entered its seventh year.

Demonstrators held up pictures of Ansarullah leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, Yemeni flags and signs that read “Death to America, Death to Israel, Victory to Islam” during Sana’a rally.

The demonstrators, while making donations to Yemeni armed forces, announced that the decisive victory of the troops over the Saudi-led coalition of aggression is now closer than ever.

Yemeni Deputy Minister of Human Rights Ali al-Dailami said the Saudi regime’s pressure on international human rights bodies not to expose the extent of its military offensives in Yemen is a convincing proof that the kingdom has lost all sense of humanity.

“Saudis have no respect whatsoever for ethical and religious principles in light of their military failure in Yemen,” Dailami said. 

In the northern city of Sa’ada, people carried a large Yemeni flag and shouted slogans as local officials cheered the crowd from the main podium.  

Elsewhere in the western port city of Hudaydah, Yemenis flooded main streets, waving the red, white and black national flags.

They held up pictures of the Ansarullah chief, and shouted slogans against Saudi Arabia, the US and Israel. 

In the northern Yemeni city of al-Jawf, men and children marched along main streets and chanted slogans to denounce the Saudi war.

Al-Masirah TV reported that similar rallies are expected to be staged in the cebtral Yemeni cities of Bayda and Rada'a on Saturday.

A tribal gathering in support of Ansarullah and in condemnation of the Saudi war is going to be held in Yemen’s central region of Afar as well.

Women are also set to attend a rally in the center of Yemen’s southwestern city of Dhamar on Saturday afternoon.

‘International community left Yemen alone in face of Saudi war’

Chairman of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council  lambasted the international community’s apathy and inaction in the face of Saudi attacks and all-out blockade.

“The world has abandoned us. The international community is witnessing what is happening in Yemen, yet it does not take any actions,” Mehdi Mohammad Hussein al-Mashat said in a televised speech broadcast from Sana’a on Friday evening.

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“Resilience and steadfastness were necessary. There were no other options. The strategy prevented us from suffering more. Such popular resistance has protected us against the policies of enemies, which are based on distortion, provocation, sectarian strife as well as religious and regional divisions,” Mashat said.

The head of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council went on to say that the Yemeni nation’s strong resistance disclosed real motives behind the Saudi-led aggression.

Houthi: War on Yemen US-Israeli plot, Saudis assigned to task

The leader of Yemen

“You (the Yemeni nation) established a new political paradigm, which maintains it is impossible to accept a ruler installed by foreign forces,” the top Yemeni official said.

Mashat criticized what he described as the United Nations’ double standards vis-à-vis Yemen, saying, “The world body voices concerns whenever we exercise our right of self-defense, but keeps mum once we come under attacks.”

Ali Abd al-Wahhab, a presenter for Yemen’s al-Masirah TV, pointed to the great military achievements that Yemeni armed forces have made over the past six years.

“Six years ago, we were looking for stones or sticks to throw at Saudis. Thank God, we are now targeting them with ballistic missiles and drones,” Wahhab tweeted.

“Six years ago, we woke up to the sound of bombings in Sana’a, ‘Amran, Ibb, Dhamar and Hajjah. Now, the House of Saud wakes up to see [Saudi cities of] Ras Tanura, Rabigh, Yanbu, Jizan and Dammam bombed,” he wrote in another post published on his Twitter page.

He was reacting to reports that Yemeni armed forces had carried out a series of retaliatory missile and drone strikes against Saudi Arabia, targeting state-owned Saudi Aramco oil facilities in the kingdom’s southern regions as well as King Abdulaziz Air Base in the Eastern Province.

Yemeni army strikes Saudi Aramco oil facilities, airbase in retaliatory attacks

Yemeni armed forces launch retaliatory drone and missile strikes against key oil installations and military sites in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia, backed by the US and its other regional allies, launched a devastating war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing Hadi’s government back to power and crushing the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement. 

Yemeni armed forces and allied Popular Committees have, however, gone from strength to strength against the Saudi-led invaders, and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the country.

The Saudi-led military aggression has left tens of thousands of Yemenis dead, and displaced millions of people. It has destroyed Yemen's infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases across the Arab country.

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