Alwaght- Yemeni forces urged foreign companies to pull out of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) following a series of retaliatory strikes against the Persian Gulf country in retaliation for the devastating Saudi-led war on their homeland.
“In the aftermath of the crimes committed by the Saudi-led coalition of aggression against Yemeni people, we advise foreign companies in the Emirates to leave because they have invested in an unsafe country,” Yahya Saree said in a statement posted on his Twitter page on Friday night.
He added, “The UAE would grow more insecure as long as its rulers continue their military aggression against Yemen.”
On Monday, Yemeni army forces, backed by allied fighters from Popular Committees, carried out retaliatory airstrikes against strategic facilities deep inside the UAE, apparently using domestically-manufactured combat drones.
Abu Dhabi police, in a statement published on the official Emirates News Agency WAM, said three fuel tanker trucks had exploded in the industrial Musaffah area, near storage facilities of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), and that a fire had also broken out at a construction site at Abu Dhabi International Airport.
At least three people have been killed and six others wounded in the suspected drone attack, according to the Emirati authorities.
Police identified the dead as two Indian nationals and one Pakistani. It did not identify the wounded, whom it said suffered minor or moderate wounds.
Also on Friday, thousands of Yemenis staged demonstrations in the capital Sana’a and other cities to condemn the Saudi-led coalition bombardment of Yemen’s northwestern city of Sa’ada as well as the western port city of Hudaydah.
At least 60 people lost their lives and more than 120 others sustained injuries when Saudi fighter jets targeted Sa’ada Central Prison on Friday morning. Hours earlier, six civilians had been killed and 18 others injured after Saudi warplanes struck a communications center in Hudaydah.
‘Retaliatory strikes against Yemen sent clear messages to Saudi-led coalition, Israel’
Meanwhile, Yemeni Information Minister Dhaifullah al-Shami said the retaliatory attacks against the UAE conveyed unambiguous messages to the Saudi-led coalition and Israel, and affirmed that those responsible for crimes against the Yemeni nation cannot escape unscathed.
“The enemy was seeking to perpetrate today's crimes [against Sa’ada and Hudaydah] in silence and far from public opinion. Nationwide internet blackout in Yemen is a scheme by the Saudi-led coalition to conceal its crimes. Whatever took place in Syria several years ago is now happening in our country,” Shami said in an interview with Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television news network.
He added, “The fact that officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had visited Sa’ada Central Prison two days prior to the air raid points to the United Nations’ complicity in the massacre.”
“We are isolated from the rest of the world as a result of the Saudi-led coalition’s blockade. Nevertheless, the latest slaughter will spew out volcanoes of rage from Yemen,” the Yemeni information minister pointed out.
“Criminals will not escape unpunished. What they saw in their capitals was nothing but initial warnings. The recent strikes against the UAE were the first message to the Saudi-led coalition and the Israeli regime,” Shami said.
‘Yemenis will not be brought to their knees’
Additionally, a senior official from Yemen’s popular Ansarullah resistance movement said the Saudi-led coalition sought to “terrorize the Yemeni nation” with its airstrikes against Sa’ada and Hudaydah.
“Yemenis will not be brought to their knees, no matter how many carnages the coalition would commit. Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis are dying due to the ongoing siege, which is the Saudi-led alliance's gravest crime,” Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of Ansarullah's political bureau, told al-Mayadeen TV.
He added that those behind the massacre will be deeply regretful for the act of aggression, arguing the international community’s apathy towards the crippling siege against Yemen.
Massacres of Yemeni people are not beneficial to the Saudi-led coalition at all, Bukhaiti noted.
Hezbollah condemns brutal massacre in Yemen, slams intl. silence
Additionally, Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement has denounced the bloody Saudi bombing of Sa’ada Central Prison in Yemen.
“This horrendous carnage proves the Saudi-led coalition’s brutality, and its utter disregard for all humanitarian, moral and religious principles,” it said in a statement.
The Lebanese resistance movement noted that the strike was meant to cover up failures of the Saudi-led coalition forces and their Takfiri mercenaries in battles against the Yemeni army troops and fighters from Popular Committees.
Hezbollah also deplored the international community’s silence on the ongoing bloodshed in Yemen, calling on freedom-loving people worldwide to voice solidarity with the oppressed Yemeni people and roundly reject such crimes.
“We believe that our dear brethren in Yemen, who have endured enormous sufferings over the past few years, will eventually emerge victorious and triumph over aggressors,” the statement read.
Separately, Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior member of the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement, equated the Saudi-led coalition's acts of aggression in Yemen to Israeli crimes against Palestinians, stressing that Arab states should bear in mind that partnership with the West and the Israeli regime is of no benefit to them.
“The Saudi-led coalition is seeking to obtain the consent of the West and the Israeli regime. The Arab regimes of the Persian Gulf region have taken up a failed path, and are relying on powers that will have no place in the future of the region,” Zahar told al-Mayadeen TV.
“Arab regimes are oppressively preventing their nations from voicing opposition to the Israeli occupation and normalization of relations with the regime, the senior Hamas official said, arguing that Arab rulers have ignored the history of Arab dignity and peace in order to preserve their monarchies.
The Islamic Jihad resistance movement also denounced the latest Saudi airstrikes against various areas in Yemen.
“The deliberate targeting of civilians in Yemen by US-built warplanes, and possibly with the participation of Israeli fighter jets, attests to the defeat of aggressors on battle grounds [against Yemeni armed forces],” it said in a statement.
The statement added, “Such attacks are a desperate and futile attempt to break the will of a nation, who have decided not to accept the diktats of the regimes that have tied their fate to US-Israeli policies in the region and have abandoned the Palestinian cause and al-Quds.”
“The Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement hereby reiterates its solidarity with the brotherly Yemeni nation against the unjust Saudi-led aggression, and expresses confidence that the Yemeni people will defeat aggressors mightily at last,” it concluded.
Iraqi anti-terror Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq and Kata'ib Hezbollah resistance movements, which are part of the Popular Mobilization Units or Hashd al-Sha’abi, as well as the Speaker of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq Sheikh Humam Hamoudi have also condemned the bloody Saudi bombings against Yemen.
Saudi Arabia, backed by the United States and regional allies, launched the war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi back to power and crushing the Ansarullah movement.
The war has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead and displaced millions more. It has also destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases there.
Despite heavily-armed Saudi Arabia’s incessant bombardment of the impoverished country, the Yemeni armed forces and the Popular Committees have grown steadily in strength against the Saudi-led invaders and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the country.
