UAE pounds Yemen rebels after coalition’s deadliest day

SANAA — The UAE bombarded Yemeni rebels with air strikes on Saturday as it mourned 45 of its soldiers among dozens killed in the deadliest day yet for the Saudi-led coalition.

Media in Riyadh said 10 Saudi soldiers died in Friday's missile attack in the battleground eastern oil province of Marib.

The strike hit an arms depot, triggering huge explosions that the exiled Yemeni government said also killed five Bahraini coalition troops.

The UAE denounced the attack as "cowardly" and said it would not sap its commitment to the coalition's mission to restore exiled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

The Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels hailed the missile strike as "revenge" for six months of deadly coalition air raids.

Coalition spokesman General Ahmed Assiri told Saudi online media Saturday the war against the rebels would not ease.

"The mission of the coalition forces is to restore peace and stability to Yemen," the daily Al Riyadh quoted him as saying.

"They will continue their military operations until their objectives are achieved."

The coalition launched its air war when Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia in March after the rebels entered his last refuge, Yemen's second city Aden.

After his loyalists recaptured the southern port city in July, the coalition launched a ground operation which has seen the rebels pushed back from five southern provinces, although they still control the capital Sanaa and much of the north and centre.

UAE troops have played a leading role in the operation and seven had already been killed in the fighting.

UAE in mourning 

But Friday’s losses were the heaviest since the formation of the United Arab Emirates in 1971 and, as the bodies arrived home on Saturday the country began three days of national mourning.

UAE warplanes retaliated with pre-dawn bombing raids in Marib and Sanaa as well as the rebel stronghold of Saada in the far north and the central city of Ibb, state media reported.

Coalition aircraft unleashed waves of air strikes on the rebel-held capital from the early hours, sowing panic.

“These are the heaviest air strikes that Sanaa has endured,” a local official told AFP.

The streets remained deserted as the bombing lasted into daylight.

Coalition warplanes also bombed the rebel position from which the missile is believed to have been fired, a local official and witnesses said.

The Baihan district of Shabwa province, which borders Marib, is one of the last rebel redoubts in the south.

In the UAE capital Abu Dhabi, an honour guard stood by as pallbearers carried the coffins off a military aircraft at Al Bateen Airport.

“A cowardly attack will not deter us, nor will it stop us from realising our goals,” vowed Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash.

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, head of the Emirati armed forces, vowed that “these events will only make us more steadfast in our stand for justice”.

Rebels hail ‘revenge’ strike 

The Houthis said they had fired a Tochka missile at the Safer camp in Marib.

They hailed the strike as “revenge for the crimes and the war of extermination being carried out by the Saudi aggressor and its mercenaries”.

The province is the location of Yemen’s main oilfields and has seen fierce fighting as loyalist forces and their coalition allies have advanced north.

Loyalist military sources said that the coalition had sent reinforcements to Safer this week, including tanks, armoured vehicles, troop carriers, rocket launchers and Apache helicopters.

The extra hardware and troops were intended to boost “the counter-offensive launched by loyalist forces and the coalition to advance on Sanaa”, one military official said.

Friday’s coalition losses came as Saudi King Salman met US President Barack Obama in Washington, with Yemen high on the talks agenda.

Obama said the two sides “share concerns” about the need to restore a functioning government in Yemen and relieve its humanitarian crisis.

More than 4,500 people have been killed in the conflict, including hundreds of children, according to the United Nations which has warned that the impoverished country is on the brink of famine.

Washington has supported the coalition effort, but repeatedly warned about the impact of the fighting on civilians.

Secretary of State John Kerry telephoned his UAE counterpart Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan to express his condolences.