Saudi coalition fighter jets strike Sana’a

The Saudi-led coalition claimed it struck a Houthi camp in Sanaa. The coalition said it destroyed weapons storehouses in the capital, according to the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

“The operation in Sanaa was an immediate response to an attempt to transfer weapons from Al-Tashrifat camp in Sanaa,” it announced in a statement on Sunday.

But, local sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that Saudi fighter jets targeted Asr district, which lies on the western suburb of Sana’a, for three times, damaging several residential buildings.

The sources added that the aerial attacks sent panic-stricken locals into the streets. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Lebanese al-Mayadeen television news network also reported that powerful explosions rocked southern districts of the Yemeni capital, shattering windows and damaging structures, as Saudi air strikes targeted some sites there.

According to a report, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are leading a devastating military campaign and brutal siege against Yemen, are reportedly making preparations to hand over the control of the country’s southeastern province of Shabwah to al-Qaeda terrorists.

Yemeni military sources, who preferred not to be named, told Yemen News Portal website that the Saudi-led coalition is seeking to transfer several militant brigades, which include groups from Salafist and al-Qaeda-linked groups, to Shabwah.

The sources added that the Riyadh regime had ordered Major General Ibrahim Haydan, Yemen’s interior minister in the administration of fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, to direct pro-Hadi forces in neighboring Abyan Province to facilitate the passage of Salafisit militants and members of the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) terrorist group to the oil-producing region.

Saudi Arabia and its allies launched a war against the Arab world’s most impoverished nation in March 2015. The war has been seeking to restore power in Yemen to Riyadh’s favorite officials.

The death toll of the war, now in its seventh year, will reach an estimated 377,000 by the end of 2021, according to a recent report from the UN’s Development Programme.

The fighting has seen some 80 percent of the population, or 24 million people, relying on aid and assistance, including 14.3 million who are in acute need.