News / Yemen

Yemeni forces, allies hit Saudi military base with ballistic missile: Report

Saturday, 20 January 2018 1:03 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 20 January 2018 3:02 PM ]

This file picture shows three domestically-designed and –manufactured Qaher M-2 missiles in the Yemeni capital Sana’a. (Photo by the media bureau of Yemen’s Joint Operations Command)

Yemeni army forces, supported by allied fighters from Popular Committees, have fired a short-range ballistic missile at a military base in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern border region of Najran, in retaliation for the Saudi regime’s military campaign against the crisis-hit country, Yemeni media report.

A military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that the projectile struck Quwwah base in the region, located about 844 kilometers south of the capital Riyadh, on Saturday afternoon.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or the extent of damage caused.

A Saudi military spokesman later claimed that air defense forces had intercepted the missile.

Separately, scores of Saudi-sponsored militiamen loyal to Yemen's former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi were killed or injured when Yemeni troops and their allies stormed their position in an area of the southern Yemeni province of Bayda.

Also on Saturday, a couple lost their lives when Saudi fighter jets carried out an airstrike against a residential area in the Razih district of Yemen’s northwestern province of Sa’ada.

Smoke rises as Yemenis inspect the damage at the site of Saudi airstrikes in the northwestern city of Sa’ada on January 6, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

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 2017 and is suspected to have infected 841,906.

A malnourished Yemeni child receives treatment at a hospital in the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah on January 16, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

In November 2017, the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF) said that more than 11 million children in Yemen were in acute need of aid, stressing that it was estimated that every 10 minutes a child died of a preventable disease there.

Additionally, the UN has described the current level of hunger in Yemen as “unprecedented,” emphasizing that 17 million people are now food insecure in the country.

The world body says that 6.8 million, meaning almost one in four people, do not have enough food and rely entirely on external assistance.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk