Alwaght- Yemeni air defense forces shot down a fighter jet in southwest Saudi Arabia in retaliation for fresh airstrikes by the kingdom against Yemeni civilians.
In a statement, the Yemen's defense ministry said on its website that the fighter jet belonging to the Royal Saudi Air Force had been hit in the Asir region as it was returning from Yemen's northern province of Sa'ada.
According to Yemeni military officials, the invading aircraft had taken part in deadly airstrikes against residential neighborhoods in the Arab country.
The Saudi military has confirmed its Tornado jet came down in Asir region in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Col. Turki Al-Maliki the spokesman of the Saudi-led coalition involved in the illegal aggression on Yemen claimed the aircraft was returning from a training mission when it crashed in the southern region 'due to a technical failure'.
In January, Yemen’s Ansarullah movement released footage of the moment its forces shot down an F-15 fighter jet belonging to the Saudi air force.
In June last year, Yemeni air defense forces also intercepted and shot down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet in the skies over Sana’a.
Yemeni forces regularly fire ballistic missiles at positions inside Saudi Arabia in retaliation for the Saudi-led war on Yemen.
In another development on Thursday, Yemeni army snipers shot dead five Saudi mercenaries at the strategic Jabal al-Doud military base in the kingdom’s southwestern border region of Jizan.
In addition, at least 44 Saudi-backed militants were killed in a series of violent clashes across Yemen.
Nearly 15,000 Yemenis, mostly women, children and the elderly, have been killed since the onset of Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against the impoverished state. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country's infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble due to the war. The Saudi-led war has also triggered a worsening humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportions across Yemen.
However, the allied forces of the Yemeni army and popular committees established by Ansarullah revolutionaries have been heroically confronting the aggression with all means, inflicting huge losses upon Saudi-led forces.
The Saudi-led coalition has also imposed an inhuman blockade on the impoverished country’s ports and airports as a part of the aggression.
