Al Mukalla: Yemen’s Ministry of Defence has said that Saudi-led coalition fighter jets struck an Al Houthi gathering, killing as many as 100 in Al Bouga’a region in Hodeida’s Attuhayatta.
The ministry described the air strikes as “accurate” that took out entire group of militants who were at the site and destroyed their military equipment.
The militants were apparently regrouping before heading to the battlefield to reinforce other militants.
Not far from the Red Sea district of Attuhayatta, government forces are battling Al Houthis outside Al Jarrahi after liberating a large swathe of land on the outskirts of Hays, another strategic urban area in the province of Hodeida.
Massive air support and military logistics on the ground from the Saudi-led coalition have played a pivotal role in helping government forces to push back Al Houthis and take the offensive on the battlefield.
Meanwhile, Yemeni authorities have nabbed a militant cell which was planning a string of attacks against security forces in Aden.
Brigadier Munair Al Meshali, the commander of the UAE-trained Special Task Forces, said that his elite forces captured a number of militants after raiding their hideouts in Aden’s Dar Saada, Al Mousa’ben, Sheikh Othman, Al Memedareh districts.
During the raid they recovered several vehicles used in recent assassinations in the city.
He did not say whether the militants belonged to Al Qaida or Daesh, but Daesh militants have claimed responsibility for several brazen assassinations and suicide attacks against counterterrorism forces in Aden.
Aden, Yemen’s second important city and the temporary headquarters of the internationally-recognised government, has recently witnessed a surge in the number of drive-by shootings that target military and security officers.
The city has enjoyed a relative calm since late 2016 after thousands of UAE armed and trained forces expelled Daesh and Al Qaida militants from Aden as well as the the neighbouring Lahj and Abyan provinces, pushing them into surrounding mountains.
Security officers are confident that recent raids against Daesh and Al Qaida hideouts in Aden will stamp out the problem once and for all.
The two militant groups have exploited the security vacuum in the country after a coup in late 2014 by Iran-backed Al Houthi militants booted the internationally-recognised government of Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi from Sana’a.
An ensuing war between a Saudi-led coalition backing Hadi and Al Houthis have killed more than 10,000 people.
A crackdown on Al Qaida and Daesh by mostly UAE-backed forces was largely successful and was able to push the terrorists out of their major strongholds.
