Forty-five troops from the United Arab Emirates were killed in Yemen while taking part in Saudi-led operations against Shiite rebels, the Gulf nation said Friday, in the deadliest day for its military in its 44-year history.The UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, said the troops were killed when a rebel missile struck an ammunition depot. On his official Tweeter feed he said the "cowardly attack will not deter us". Pro-government Yemeni security officials said the missile strike took place in the province of Marib, about 120 kilometres east of the capital Sanaa. Officials from the media office of the Shiite rebel movement known as the Houthis confirmed they fired a Soviet-era Tochka missile in the area. (...)
Warplanes from the United Arab Emirates struck Houthi targets across Yemen, state news agency WAM said on Saturday, a day after at least 60 soldiers from a Saudi-led coalition, mostly Emiratis, were killed in an attack in central Yemen. Medical sources at hospitals in the capital, Sanaa, said about 24 civilians were killed in the city as a result of the attacks. Apart from 45 Emiratis and five Bahraini, Saudi TV reported on Saturday that 10 Saudi soldiers we're also killed in the attack in Marib province. (...) Four Yemeni soldiers were also killed in the attack in Marib. Friday's death toll was the highest for the coalition since it began its assault on the Houthis in March (...)
Airstrikes hit a wedding celebration in a rebel-held portion of Yemen, killing at least 30 people, local officials said, amid a months-long conflict, in which a Saudi-led coalition has bombed rebel areas. (...) The Houthi-controlled news agency Saba and Yemeni security officials accused the coalition of carrying out the bombing [against the southwestern town of Sanabani]. The coalition denied the allegation, saying it didn't have any operations in that area . (...)
The Arab coalition fighting to reinstall Yemen's ousted president has deployed Patriot air-defence systems to defend its forward operating base in Marib province, satellite imagery from Airbus Defence and Space has confirmed. (...) The deployment of the Patriot systems effectively confirms there is an ongoing ballistic missile threat to the base as Yemen's air force has not resisted the coalition since it launched its intervention in March and most (if not all) of its aircraft have now been destroyed on the ground (...)
