At least 53 people were killed in a Houthi ballistic missile attack on a Yemeni government security forces training camp, making it the largest loss of life since the country’s civil war resumed in September.
The attack on the al-Alam camp in the southern province of Shabwa reportedly injured more than 200 other people, most of them young recruits, and was described as a disaster by the country’s UN-recognized government. The injured were transported from the police and army training camp in Jardan district to a hospital in the local capital, Ataq, where an appeal for blood donations was made.
An investigation will be carried out to determine why so many soldiers were exposed to a Houthi attack. In mid-September, the group launched a new offensive against forces supporting the UN-recognized government by pushing south along the Red Sea coast in an attempt to take control of the Bab al-Mandab waterway.
It is difficult to obtain reliable estimates of the number of casualties from last month’s fighting, but they number in the thousands. A Saudi airstrike on Sunday killed nine people, including five children and two women.
Rashad al-Alimi, the president of the UN-recognized government, said those killed Monday were new recruits and he promised an immediate and firm response. He said the incident “confirmed that targeting recruits reflects the Houthi militias’ approach of resorting to cowardly terrorist attacks whenever they come under pressure or their Iranian-backed sabotage plots fail.”
On Monday, he called UN Secretary-General António Guterres to ask the UN to classify the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization.
The Shabwa provincial authority said: “Targeting the recruits constitutes military escalation and a blatant attack on the security of the province. » Its governor, Awad bin al-Wazir, visited the wounded in hospitals and called for additional air defenses, saying troops were fighting on six fronts.
The killings underscore the dangers of massing large numbers of troops in one location, within range of the Houthis’ ballistic missile arsenal. The training camp was hit by three ballistic missiles as recruits lined up in formation.
Houthi forces also cut off the road between government-run Shabwa and Houthi-run Bayda governorate.
The Houthis’ military spokesperson said: “Our armed forces targeted the Saudi enemy’s mobilizations in the al-Alam camp, which is led by Saudi officers in the eastern regions. This targeting resulted in dozens of deaths and injuries from the Saudi enemy’s mobilizations, including Saudi officers.”
“We warn those who are deceived against responding to the calls of the Saudi enemy to lure them with its tainted money to the pyres of death and to exploit them in place of its soldiers who are indifferent to their lives.”
A Yemeni government spokesperson said the struck site was not a military target linked to the ongoing fighting but “a training center where new recruits to the internal security forces in Shabwa governorate receive training and qualification programs.”
They add: “This reveals the criminal nature of this attack, which targeted young people in the preparation and qualification phase to exercise their security functions, far from the front lines.”
Separately, the Houthis claim to have hit southern Yemen’s giant anti-Houthi brigades in six strikes in the al-Suqya and Ras al-Ara regions. Southern forces are reportedly advancing to push Houthi forces away from control of the area around the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the narrowest waterway connecting shipping from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.
Fighting is also underway as the Houthis attempt to stage a siege of Taiz, where citizens are demanding greater air protection. In the city, there appears to be a determination not to capitulate, but conditions are deteriorating as the Houthis close access points.
It is unclear whether the Houthis have decided to slow the pace of attacks on Saudi airports and energy facilities, or whether they are running out of ammunition.
Saudi Aramco’s headquarters was hit last weekend and some airlines said they would not resume using Riyadh airport. The airport reopened this weekend after being attacked this month.
The Egyptian Parliament postponed the vote on whether or not to send troops to Saudi Arabia, despite extending the debate to a second day, with MPs demanding more than two minutes each to speak. The vote is now expected to take place next week.
A two-thirds majority is required, and some opposition parties have signaled their intention to vote against or abstain. The disputes center on the scope of the mission and whether it will involve sending troops to Yemen to help Saudi Arabia, and whether Egyptian troops in Saudi Arabia would become targets for Houthi attacks.
The delay also gives the Egyptians time to see if Iran can persuade the Houthis to hold back, and for Saudi Arabia to confirm the renewal of much-needed loans to Egypt.
Egypt has resisted any ground intervention in Yemen since the 1962-67 war, when Gamal Abdel Nasser sent troops to support North Yemen’s republicans against royalists backed by Saudi Arabia and Britain. The incursion was supposed to be small, but it reached up to 70,000 troops. Estimates of the number of Egyptians killed vary between 10,000 and 26,000.
Gn world
