Saudi regime has launched military operations in Yemen, the Saudi ambassador to the US said. Saudi regime has pledged to use 100 warplanes and contribute 150,000 soldiers to the newly formed coalition, the Saudi state-owned Al-Arabiya TV network said.
According to Ambassador Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, the military operation in Yemen started at 7 p.m. EST (11 p.m. GMT). The US is not participating in the operation, the envoy stressed.
two Saudi warplane was shot down by the country’s air defense system, the al-Alam television reported.
More than 20 people have reportedly died and over 30 others were injured following Saudi regime-led airstrikes in Yemen, Sputnik news agency cited local security and medical sources as saying.
A Yemeni TV channel reported dozens of civilian casualties following airstrikes north of Sanaa. Ansarullah used heavy anti-aircraft fire to respond to the bombing.
The majority of the strikes around Sanaa hit residential areas located near the capital’s international airport. Government buildings and the airport were also hit during the offensive.
Earlier Wednesday, ansarullah movement captured parts of the port city of Aden, Mansur Hadi's stronghold, and a nearby Yemeni air base recently evacuated by U.S. forces, officials in the country said, while Hadi fled Aden as revelutionaries advanced .
Ansarullah late Wednesday morning captured al-Anad air base, an installation that the last Yemen-based contingent of U.S. special operations forces evacuated over the weekend, said Mohammed AbdulSalam, a spokesman for the ansarullah movement .
Egypt is providing political and military support for the operation, the country’s state media said. Cairo is prepared to take part in air, naval and ground operations if necessary, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry has announced.
Media reports said that Pgcc members as well as Jordan, Sudan, Morocco and Pakistan are also part of the coalition and have offered their support for military operation in Yemen.
While the Saudi envoy insisted Washington only “consulted” Riyadh, a US official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that America has been supporting the military operation in an unspecified way.
Ansarullah leaders have in turn branded the Saudi offensive as “aggression” and warned that it will drag the entire Gulf region into conflict.
“There is an aggression underway on Yemen and we will confront it valiantly,” a member of the Houthi political office, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, told Al Jazeera. “Military operations will drag the region to a wide war.”
