Yemen says capable of targeting all Saudi-led coalition member states

Head of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council says the country’s missile force is capable of targeting all member states of the Saudi-led coalition that are waging a war on Yemen.

Speaking during a meeting in the western city of Hudaydah on Sunday, Mahdi al-Mashat said that the Yemeni ground forces have achieved deterrence power against enemies like that possessed by the naval forces.

“Last year we [said] …that the Navy possessed weapons, with which we could strike any point in the sea from anywhere in Yemen, and this was a message of deterrence to the forces of war,” Saba news agency quoted Mashat as saying.

“And now I am sending them the following message on the ground level. It seems that you need to try our missile force, which can strike any target in any city in the aggression countries from anywhere in Yemen, and not from a specific region.”

He also hailed Yemen’s military achievements as a source of pride and honor for the nation.

Saudi Arabia initiated a brutal war of aggression against Yemen in March 2015, enlisting the assistance of some of its regional allies, as well as massive shipments of advanced weaponry from the US and Western Europe.

The Western governments further extended their political and logistical support to Riyadh in their failed bid to restore power in Yemen to the country’s former Saudi-installed government.

The former Yemeni government’s president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, resigned from the presidency in late 2014 and later fled to Riyadh amid a political conflict with Ansarullah. The movement has been running Yemen’s affairs in the absence of a functioning administration.

The war further led to the killing of tens of thousands of Yemenis and turned the entire nation into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

A UN-brokered ceasefire, which was reached last year, is still largely in place despite its official expiry. It has significantly reduced clashes over the past months.