Yemeni naval forces target, torch Saudi military vessel in western Yemen

This photo provided by Yemen’s Joint Operations Command purportedly shows Saudi al-Madinah warship in waters off the coast of Hudaydah city, Yemen, on January 30, 2017.

Yemeni naval forces, backed by fighters from allied Popular Committees, have targeted and torched a Saudi military vessel in a missile attack off the coast of the country’s western province of Hudaydah, military says.

Yemen's official Saba news agency, citing an unnamed military source in the Navy, reported that the destruction of the Saudi-led coalition’s gunboat occurred on Monday, when Yemeni forces hit the intruding vessel with a missile.

The military official further asserted that the Saudi vessel was carrying out radar jamming and deception against Yemeni army when it was targeted.

On January 30, Yemeni army forces fired a guided missile at Saudi Arabia’s al-Madinah battleship in waters near the city of Hudaydah, and on June 25, another Saudi war boat was hit and destroyed by Yemeni forces on Yemen off the coast of Mukha port city in Ta’izz Province.

On January 21, the Yemeni coast guard warned enemies’ battleships against using the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, to bomb civilian targets, emphasizing that such a practice poses grave threats to international maritime navigation in the area.

According to Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network, during the past two years, the Yemeni army has managed to destroy 11 Saudi ships and battleships and sink over 10 gunboats and frigates of the Arab kingdom in the strategic Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Since the beginning of the Saudi war on Yemen on March 2015, which was carried out in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstall the former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh, Saudi warplanes have pounded the nation day and night, killing over 12,000 people, including many women and children, and displacing over three million others.

The Yemen war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories. The humanitarian situation in Yemen has also dramatically deteriorated amid a Saudi blockade, which has put the impoverished country on the brink of widespread famine.

The Riyadh regime has, however, failed to reach its goals despite suffering great expense.