Alwaght-The Yemeni army for the first time carried out a successful missile strike on a Saudi military base in the country’s capital Riyadh, moving the Kingdom’s war on Yemen to a new level.
Military sources in Sanaa say the Yemeni Army and the Ansarullah-led popular forces fired on Monday morning, a ballistic missile on the Saudi capital of Riyadh. Ansarullah has also issued a statement declaring Borkan missile successfully hit its target in Riyadh " at around 8:00 p.m. GMT”.
Yemen's official news agency SABA News agency quoted a spokesperson of the Ansarullah movement announcing the attack as a "successful test-fire on a precision long-distance ballistic missile." "We stress that the capital of [expletive] Saudi Arabia is now in the range of our missiles and, God willing, what is coming will be greater," a statement from Ansarullah noted. According to reports, the missile hit a Saudi military base in al-Mazahamiah area western Riyadh. Meanwhile, Saudi activists on Twitter also reported that a blast was heard in al-Mazahamiah.
Retaliatory attack
For nearly two year now, the Yemen has borne the brunt of a brutal Saudi-led and US-backed aggression which has left over 11,000 Yemenis, mostly civilians including women and children killed. According to The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), over 1,400 children have been killed in the ongoing deadly Saudi war on Yemen.
Meritxell Relano, UNICEF's representative in Yemen, said mid-last month that many more children been injured and a high number of schools remain closed since March 2015, when the Saudi regime started its ruthless war on the impoverished Arab state. Relano added that some 3.3 million Yemenis, including 2.2 million children, are suffering from acute malnutrition while 460,000 under the age of five have severe acute malnutrition. The Saudi war on Yemen which is also backed by Britain and the Israeli regime, has targeted and destroyed civilian sites, such as school buildings, hospitals, markets, mosques and economic infrastructure. Meanwhile, a World Bank report said the cost from damage to infrastructure and economic losses following Saudi aggression on Yemen was been estimated at more than $14 billion as of May last year.
Under such adversities, the war-weary Yemeni nation has been left with no option but to target the heart of the Saudi regime. Over the last twenty months, Yemeni forces including the Ansarullah fighters have inflicted heavy losses on Saudi-led forces during retaliatory attacks. Last October Yemeni army missiles hit a Saudi air base in Jeddah. The King Abdulaziz airport, which is the Saudi’s Royal air force base was badly damaged and temporarily closed following the attack.
Dire warning to Riyadh
The self-defense and retaliatory missile attack by Yemeni forces on a military base in Riyadh is a firm and legitimate response to unabated Saudi aggression. The missile strike on Riyadh, serves as a dire warning to the Saudi regime that the capital will now be on target unless it ends the aggression and bloody massacre of Yemenis which has been made worse by the unjust siege on the people of Yemen. The resistance forces have also put the Saudi regime on notice by firing at several of the Kingdom’s warships along the Yemeni coast. The successful operations by Yemeni forces are an indicator of a weakened Saudi army which now has to rely on US-Israeli protection and assistance.
The Saudi regime invaded Yemen to restore the country’s resigned president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi who is unpopular and considered a Riyadh puppet by Yemenis. Saudi intransigence has derailed for several times UN-sponsored peace talks.
Certainly, dialog among Yemeni groups aimed at agreeing on a lasting solution to the country’s conflict without foreign interference is the only way to achieve peace. Any peace agreement in Yemen must also serve the interests of the Arab nation. As long as the Western and Israeli-backed Saudi regime persists in its aggression on Yemen then it should expect more severe retaliatory attacks from the country’s resistance forces.
