The Saudi-led Arab coalition said on Friday it carried out a sophisticated operation in Yemen’s Hodeidah province against hostile targets controlled by the terrorist Iran-backed Houthi militias.
“The Coalition's Joint Forces carried out in north of Hodeidah a qualitative operation at dawn Friday targeting Houthi targets that pose a threat to regional and international security,” said the spokesman of the Joint Forces Command (JFC) of the Coalition for the Support of Legitimacy in Yemen, Colonel Turki al-Maliki.
His comments came one day after the JFC announced the interception and destruction of a remote-controlled booby-trapped boat.
Maliki explained that the targets included four locations for the assembly of naval mines and rigging of remote-controlled vessels.
“These sites are used to carry out hostilities and terrorist operations that threaten maritime shipping lanes and international trade routes in the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the southern Red Sea,” he was quoted as saying by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
Maliki further said that Houthi militias are taking the governorate of Hodeidah as a platform for launching ballistic missiles, drones, booby-trapped and remote-controlled boats, as well as indiscriminately deploying naval mines, in clear violation of international humanitarian law and in violation of the provisions of the Stockholm agreement and ceasefire in Hodeidah.
He stressed that the coalition has the legitimate right to take and implement appropriate deterrence measures to deal with these legitimate military targets in accordance with international humanitarian law, while continuing to support all political efforts to implement the Stockholm deal and end the Houthi coup.
Meanwhile, Arab coalition sources said it continues to grant permits to all ships heading towards the Yemeni ports, adding that the Houthis were stopping those vessels from entering the port of Hodeidah.
Alarabiya.net website reported on Friday that Houthis were still preventing two vessels, TOROS M and LE RUBY, from unloading their food cargo.
