Yemeni forces strike Saudi army positions in Najran with new missile

The spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, said Yemeni soldiers and allied fighters launched a newly-developed medium-range ballistic missile Qassem (Raider) missile at the strongholds of Saudi soldiers and their mercenaries in the Saqam area of the region on Tuesday afternoon, leaving dozens of them killed and injured, Arabic-language al-Masirah television network reported.

Saree added that the projectile hit its designated targets with great precision.

The spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces highlighted that the attack was launched after a delicate intelligence operation, noting that Qassem missile will be displayed during a press conference in the near future.

Yemeni forces had earlier launched the same medium-range ballistic missile and an armed drone at the al-Jalaa military camp in Aden’s Buraiqa district. 

Al-Masirah TV said the August 1 attack targeted a military parade at the camp belonging to the Yemeni Security Belt forces backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and caused scores of casualties, including military commanders.

Also on Tuesday, an elderly woman suffered grave injuries when a barrage of missiles and artillery rounds, launched by Saudi forces, rained down on a residential area in the Razih district of Yemen’s northwestern mountainous province of Sa’ada.

Yemeni army forces and Popular Committees fighters also targeted a Saudi military vehicle with a roadside bomb southwest of the Hayran district in the northwestern Yemeni province of Hajjah, killing and injuring several Saudi troopers in the process.

Later in the day, a number of Saudi-paid militiamen were killed after Yemeni forces and their allies launched a barrage of artillery rounds at their positions off Jabal al-Qais mountainous area in the kingdom’s Jizan region.

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 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 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.