Yemeni navy unveils new domestically-manufactured Mersad sea mine

Yemeni naval forces have unveiled a domestically-designed and -manufactured sea mine that can target and destroy military vessels of Saudi Arabia and its regional allies, which have intruded into Yemen’s territorial waters in the strategic Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

The Mersad (Ambush) naval mine was introduced for the first time in a documentary entitled “Sea of Fire” and broadcast on Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network on Thursday evening.

The documentary showed that Yemeni naval forces had sophisticated anti-ship and coastal defense systems in their inventory, which are entirely domestically-manufactured.

It further showed the scenes of an Emirati HSV-2 Swift hybrid catamaran in flames after being targeted by Yemeni forces off the coast of the Red Sea port city of Mukha in southwestern Yemen on October 1, 2016.

On Wednesday, Yemeni naval forces, backed by fighters from Popular Committees, reportedly targeted a Saudi military vessel in a missile attack off the coast of the country’s northwestern province of Hajjah.

A military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told al-Masirah television network that the gunboat was targeted with a guided missile in waters near the port city of Midi.

Meanwhile, at least 17 civilians lost their lives and more than 20 others sustained injuries when Saudi fighter jets launched an airstrike against Gabal Ras area in Yemen’s western coastal city of Hudaydah on Saturday.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the country’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement.

The aggression has killed some 15,000 people and injured thousands more.

More than 2,200 others have died of cholera, and the crisis has triggered what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.