Yemeni forces launch drone attack on military sites in Saudi airbase

The spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces says army troopers and allied fighters from Popular Committees have launched a string of airstrikes against military aircraft hangars in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern region of Asir, using a squadron of domestically-manufactured Qasef-2K (Striker-2K) combat drones.

Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the unmanned aerial vehicles struck with great precision the designated targets in King Khalid Air Base, which lies 884 kilometers south of the capital Riyadh, late on Tuesday.

The senior Yemeni official then stressed that retaliatory attacks will continue as long as the Riyadh regime continues its military aggression, siege and relentless raids against the war-torn Arab country.

Separately, dozens of Saudi troopers and Saudi-sponsored militiamen were killed when Yemeni army soldiers and fighters from allied Popular Committees launched an offensive against their positions in the kingdom’s southern border region of Jizan.

An unnamed Yemeni military source said Yemeni soldiers and allied fighters launched three domestically-developed Zelzal-1 (Earthquake-1) missiles and a number of artillery rounds at Saudi mercenaries’ positions off Jabal al-Qais mountainous area, leaving dozens of them killed and injured in the process.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 91,000  lives over the past four and a half years.

The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN says over 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger.