Despite Negotiations, Saudi Warplanes Launch 28 Airstrikes on Yemen

Local Editor

Although Saudi Arabia claimed ordering its forces to pause attacks on Yemen with the beginning of peace talks in Sweden, its warplanes on Thursday launched more than 28 airstrikes on various parts of Yemen.

“The fact that the coalition forces and their mercenaries have continued their aggression against Yemen on the first day of peace talks in Sweden indicates that the aggressors have no interest in the establishment of peace and preparing the grounds for a second round of talks,” Yemen’s al-Masirah television network quoted a Yemeni army general as saying.

Three women were killed, and many houses were destroyed in the airstrikes, General Yahya Saree, a spokesman of the Yemeni armed forces, announced.

In retaliation, Yemeni army forces, backed by allied fighters from the Ansarullah revolutionary movement, hit gatherings of Saudi soldiers and mercenaries in the kingdom’s southwestern Jizan region on Thursday.

Using six domestically-manufactured Zelzal-1 [Quake-1] short-range missiles, the Ansarullah hit the enemy gatherings off Qais Mountain and the village of al-Laj in Jizan province.

Meanwhile, al-Masirah said in a separate report that the Yemeni army had managed to shoot down a spy drone belonging to Saudi-led forces in the coasts of Yemen’s western province of Hudaydah.

Later on Thursday, the Yemeni army spokesman said that 28 Saudi mercenaries were killed and 64 others injured during clashes with Yemeni forces in Damt region in the southern province of Dali'.   

The escalation comes as UN special envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths told reporters that the warring sides were willing to work towards a de-escalation of the crisis.

Talks between the Ansarullah movement and the Saudi-led military coalition opened on Thursday in Rimbo, Sweden, a rural area some 60 kilometers north of Stockholm.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team