Local Editor
The forces of the Houthi-controlled government in the Yemeni capital Sana’a have boosted their air defenses to a point where they no longer need to fear airstrikes by Saudi-led coalition forces, army spokesman Sharaf Luqman said, in an interview with Sputnik.
Brigadier-General Luqman said that the army now has all it needs to repel “enemy aggression” at sea, on the ground and in the air.
“The Yemeni army has taken over many enemy strongholds, which has changed the situation on the battlefield,” the general said.
“These are depots with arms for the Air Force, night-vision cameras, ballistic missiles and launchers. This answers questions about where we are getting weapons amid the current blockade; who who is helping us; and whether Iran is supplying us with ballistic missiles and military advisors,” he added.
He said that in the next few days, the Sana’a army would “greatly surprise” coalition forces.
“This will be commensurate with the attack on the Saudi’s Al-Dabaa military base [in the southern Najran province killing all Saudi military personnel stationed there], and the Panavia Tornado and F-16 planes we shot down,” General Luqman warned.
He said that the “information war” unleashed by the Saudi-led coalition is giving a distorted picture of what is really going on in Yemen.
“They are trumpeting their imaginary victories. If such victories really had happened and they could prove it, then all global media would have learned about them and reported them,” Sharaf Luqman emphasized.
He said that a peaceful settlement was the only way to end the long-running crisis in Yemen.
“We need a two-pronged negotiating process: on the international track, we need to negotiate with the Arab coalition, and we also need to talk to all forces and movements inside this country,” the Brigadier-General concluded.
Yemen has been engulfed in a violent conflict between the resigned regime, headed by former President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and the Houthi Ansarullah movement, now in control of the capital Sana’a.
The Saudi-led coalition has been participating in the military conflict in Yemen since March 2015 upon the request of Hadi.
At least 13,600 people have been killed since the onset of Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against Yemen in 2015. 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 deadly cholera epidemic across Yemen.
According to the World Health Organization’s latest count, the cholera outbreak has killed 2,167 people since the end of April and is suspected to have infected 841,906.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
