(Sanaa) At least 11 people were killed in Sanaa overnight from Monday to Tuesday in raids by the Saudi-led military coalition in response to a deadly attack by Yemeni rebels in the United Arab Emirates.
Posted at 10:12 a.m.
Monday’s attack using drones and claimed by the Houthis, the first to kill on Emirati soil, was strongly condemned abroad, in particular by the United States and France.
In response, the coalition – of which the Emirates is a member – which has been fighting Yemeni insurgents since 2015 has increased retaliatory raids on the rebel-controlled capital of Yemen since Monday evening.
“The airstrikes killed 11,” a medical source in Sanaa told AFP.
Residents of the capital were clearing the rubble after the strikes on Tuesday in the hope of finding survivors in the rubble, as two buildings were blown up by the raids.
A witness told AFP that he also saw 11 bodies while he was looking for relatives and a bulldozer was clearing the area.
“There are 11 martyrs. And we continue to search for wounded and martyrs in the rubble,” the witness, Akram al-Ahdal, told AFP.
The coalition, which had threatened on Monday to “retaliate” to the “infamous attack” of the rebels, launched new strikes on Tuesday on the capital, saying it was targeting “camps and headquarters of the Houthis”, the television channel tweeted. Saudi public Al-Ekhbariya.
The Houthis claimed on their Al-Massira channel on Monday that they had “targeted important and sensitive Emirati installations and sites” using ballistic missiles and drones.
In Abu Dhabi, three tank trucks exploded “near the storage tanks” of the Abu Dhabi oil company, killing a Pakistani and two Indians, the official Emirati agency WAM said, reporting six injured.
Regional stability “threatened”
The rebel attack has opened a new front in the war in Yemen and further dimmed hopes for a settlement of the conflict, which has displaced millions of people in what was already the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula. .
The United States promised to “hold the insurgents to account”, while the United Kingdom, France and the European Union also condemned the attacks.
“These attacks threaten the security of the United Arab Emirates and regional stability,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
The rebel attack on united Abu Dhabi follows an upsurge in fighting in Yemen, where the United Arab Emirates-trained Giants Brigade made advances, driving rebels out of southern Chabwa province.
The setback dealt a blow to the Houthis’ months-long campaign to take control of Marib, the capital of the neighboring province and the government’s last stronghold in northern Yemen.
Earlier this month, the Houthis seized a boat flying the flag of the United Arab Emirates in the Red Sea, saying it was carrying military equipment, a claim disputed by the coalition and Abu Dhabi. The 11 crew members, seven of whom are Indians, are still being held hostage.
The coalition has been working in Yemen since 2015 to support government forces against rebels, who took control of Sanaa in 2014 and then large swaths of the impoverished, war-torn country.
In seven years, the conflict has killed 377,000 people according to the UN, the vast majority due to the indirect consequences of the fighting, such as hunger, disease and the scarcity of drinking water.