United Arab Emirates Strikes Back After Deadly Houthi Attack

The witnesses said the coalition warplanes pounded positions of the Houthi rebels and bases of splinter troops loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The targets included bases on the Nahdain and Fajj Attan hills and the neighbouring presidential complex, south of Sanaa.

Nearly continual airstrikes have followed the Houthi rebel missile strike on a Saudi-led coalition munitions depot east of the Yemeni capital. The coalition started bombing Yemen in March in an attempt to restore President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi to power after the Al Houthis seized Sana’a, prompting him to flee. Pro-Hadi forces, with help from the coalition, continued taking ground north of Aden in August.

After months of a stalemated battle, Emirati soldiers played a critical role in shifting the war in favour of the coalition, including by helping anti-Houthi forces recapture Aden, a port city in Yemen’s south.

The air strikes targeted weapons storage facilities and a police department in Sana’a, which the rebels had turned into a military headquarters.

Bodies of the slain soldiers arrived home on Saturday and three days of national mourning began.

The attack also killed 10 Saudi soldiers and scores of Yemenis.

“Our revenge shall not take long,” warned Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed.

The Emirates state news agency said the country’s fighters had carried out “destructive air strikes” against “strongholds of the rebellious militias”.

“I was close to the raid that hit the command of the special security forces, the explosions were horrific, I felt that the ground was shaking beneath me and people were running away out of fear”, said Shawqi, a taxi driver.

It was the first public acknowledgement by the Saudis that they have ground troops in Yemen, where they lead a coalition targeting Shiite rebels known as Houthis and their allies.

The UAE shares Saudi Arabia’s view that the Houthis are proxies of Iran, accusing Tehran of trying to expand its influence in Yemen, Syria and Iraq.

According to Doha-based Al-Jazeera, one-thousand group troops, supported by armored vehicles and helicopters, are headed for the province of Marib.

Up to 4,500 people have now been killed in the conflict, including hundreds of children, with the United Nations issuing desperate appeals for foreign donors after it revealed an estimated 80 per cent of the population needed humanitarian aid in June.

Earlier on Wednesday, two aid workers registered with the global Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were shot dead by gunmen in northern Yemen, Press TV reported.