Yemeni army forces storm military base in SW Saudi Arabia

Yemeni army troopers have launched a retaliatory attack on a military base in southwestern Saudi Arabia as Riyadh presses ahead with a military campaign against its impoverished southern neighbor.

Yemeni soldiers launched an operation against MBC base in the kingdom’s Jizan region, which is located near the border with Yemen, late on Friday, forcing Saudi troops stationed there to flee for their lives.

A military vehicle belonging to the Saudi forces was also set ablaze during the raid, Arabic-language al-Masirah satellite television network reported.

Yemeni army forces backed by fighters from allied popular committees also launched a barrage of mortar shells against al-Malta base in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich region of Dhahran. There were no immediate reports of casualties and the extent of damage inflicted.

Moreover, an al-Qaeda militant commander, identified as Abdul Naser al-Yafeie, was killed along with a number of his comrades when a unit of Yemeni soldiers engaged them on the outskirts of al-Jaolah region, which lies northwest of the strategic southern port city of Aden.

Yemeni soldiers also destroyed three vehicles belonging to al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in Dar Sad district of Aden Province.

Separately, 12 al-Qaeda-affiliated militants were killed when Yemeni army conducted an operation in the country’s southwestern province of Taiz.

Four civilians also lost their lives in Beer Basha area of the same province, when a mortar shell fired by militiamen loyal to fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, struck a popular market.

Additionally, Saudi fighter jets conducted three airstrikes on Harad city in the northwestern Yemeni province of Hajjah.

Saudi warplanes also launched seven aerial attacks on various regions across Yemen’s central province of Ma’rib. No reports of fatalities were immediately available.

On Saturday morning, Yemeni troopers backed by fighters from allied popular committees seized complete control of Wadi al-Jarrah base located in al-Khobe district of Saudi Arabia’s Jizan region.

Furthermore, a child was killed and two civilians injured when a left from an earlier Saudi aerial attack exploded in al-Amar area of Yemen’s northwestern province of Sa’ada.

There are also reports that the former Yemeni prime minister, Khaled Bahah, who had fled to Saudi Arabia earlier this year, has arrived in the southern port city of Aden.

On March 26, Saudi Arabia began its military aggression against Yemen – without a UN mandate – in a bid to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and to restore power to Hadi, an ally of Riyadh.

Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, said on July 28, that 1,859 civilians were among the total of 3,984 people killed in Yemen until July 19. Local Yemeni sources, however, put the fatality figure at much higher.

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