• Tweeter

  • republish

Hodeida is a strategic city because its port is the point of entry for three-quarters of international humanitarian aid arriving in Yemen. REUTERS / Abduljabbar Zeyad

The Saudi-led coalition said it launched a military operation in Yemen on Thursday (September 19th) against Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Shortly before this announcement, she claimed to have foiled a booby-trapped attack.

The military coalition led by Saudi Arabia has destroyed four sites north of the port city of Hodeida (western Yemen), called " legitimate military targets ".

These sites are being exploited by Houthi rebels to assemble remotely operated boats and marine mines, according to a statement issued by the Saudi official SPA news agency. " These sites are used to carry out attacks and terrorist operations threatening maritime routes and the
international trade in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the southern Red Sea , "coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki said in a statement.

Precisely, shortly before the announcement of the military operation of September 19, the coalition had claimed to have foiled an attack on the boating boat, unmanned. " The coalition's naval force has detected an attempt by the Houthi terrorist militia linked to Iran to commit an impending hostile and terrorist act in the southern Red Sea using a remotely controlled booby-trapped boat ," the coalition said in a statement. press release distributed by SPA. The boat was launched " from the Hodeida governorate " in western Yemen, she added, not knowing what he was aiming for. He was destroyed.

These strikes came in retaliation for the spectacular attacks on Saudi oil sites on the night of 13-14 September 2019. These two simultaneous attacks, claimed by the Houthis but attributed to Iran by Riyadh and Washington, halved production. of the kingdom and caused the free fall of energy prices.

(With AFP, Reuters)