Yemeni army, Houthi Ansarullah movement warn US against further attacks

The Yemeni army and the Houthi Ansarullah movement have warned Washington against further attacks on the war-ravaged nation after the US military carried out cruise missile strikes on the country’s coastal radar sites. 

Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman, a spokesman for Yemeni forces, on Thursday denounced the US missile strikes as unacceptable and stressed that Sana’a reserves the right to defend itself in the face of such threats.

He also noted that any new attacks by the US forces would be met with the “right” response from the Yemenis.

“The direct American attack targeting Yemeni soil this morning is not acceptable,” Yemen’s Saba news agency quoted Luqman as saying.

“Yemen has the right to defend itself and we would deal with any development with the right steps,” he added.

The spokesman also denied that Houthi Ansarullah fighters had carried out missile attacks on the US warship.

The remarks came after the Pentagon said that three Yemeni radar sites had been destroyed by US cruise missile strikes.

This came after the Pentagon claimed that the USS Mason, a guided-missile destroyer, had come under the Yemeni attack for the second time in four days.

The Yemeni side has dismissed Pentagon’s accusations as an attempt to provide a pretext for the intelligence and logistics support to Saudi Arabia in its military campaign against Yemen.

The Saudi military campaign has killed more than 10,000 Yemenis since its onset in March 2015.

In one of the deadliest single attacks in the country, Saudi fighter jets bombarded a funeral hall packed with mourners in Sana’a on Saturday, killing over 140 people and injuring at least 525 others.

The US military provides aerial refueling to Saudi bombers carrying out airstrikes in Yemen.