Yemen training civilians for anti-Saudi battles: Army official
The Yemeni army says groups of civilians are now being trained in military camps across the country to prepare for the battleground against the Saudi military and its mercenaries.
“After the Sana’a disaster, we have to give a determined response and teach a great lesson to the Saudi invaders,” Yemeni army spokesman Sharaf told Lebanon’s al-Manar television on Monday.
He was referring to a Saudi air raid that killed over 140 civilians and wounded over 520 others during a funeral in the Yemeni capital on Saturday.
The senior military official further vowed to retake the areas occupied by pro-Saudi elements, saying, “Our forces are present 20 kilometers inside the Saudi soil.”
More than 10,000 people have died since the kingdom launched a campaign of blood and destruction against its impoverished neighbor to crush the Yemeni Houthi movement and their allies and bring back to power the former Yemeni government, a close Riyadh ally.
The Yemeni army and allied popular fighters have been retaliating against the offensives by targeting gatherings of Saudi mercenaries inside Yemen and firing projectiles at military positions in the kingdom’s extreme southwestern regions of Asir, Jizan and Najran.
In another development on Tuesday, as many as five people were killed and nine others wounded in two separate attacks by Saudi warplanes and pro-Riyadh militants in southwestern Yemen.
The Saudi aircraft hit a lorry carrying food supplies in the al-Mukha district of Ta’izz Province, killing one civilian and wounding another, Yemen’s al-Masirah television reported.
Meanwhile, four more Yemeni residents were killed and eight others suffered injuries after Saudi mercenaries fired a mortar round at another district elsewhere in the province.
On Tuesday, Yemeni forces frustrated an attempt by Saudi-backed militants to advance in the Nihm district of western Sana’a Province. The clashes left an unspecified number of people dead and injured.
Yemeni forces, separately, blocked Saudi forces as they were trying to enter a mountainous area they had seized in Jizan. A military vehicle belonging to the Saudi military was also set on fire in Asir, killing its occupants.
