{"id":12205,"date":"2017-11-30T17:51:21","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T17:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/?p=12205"},"modified":"2017-11-30T17:51:21","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T17:51:21","slug":"yemens-houthi-leader-threatens-to-hit-back-over-saudi-blockade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/yemens-houthi-leader-threatens-to-hit-back-over-saudi-blockade\/","title":{"rendered":"Yemen\u2019s Houthi leader threatens to hit back over Saudi blockade"},"content":{"rendered":"

The leader of Yemen’s Ansarullah movement,\u00a0Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, has promised retaliatory attacks in response to a land, aerial and naval blockade imposed on his impoverished country by a Saudi-led military alliance.<\/p>\n

Addressing his supporters via a televised speech from the Yemeni capital Sana\u2019a on Thursday, Houthi warned against \u201ctightening the blockade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riyadh imposed a tight blockade on nearly all Yemen\u2019s air, land and sea ports\u00a0after Yemeni forces on November 5 launched a solid propellant and Scud-type\u00a0Borkan-2\u00a0(Volcano-2) missile against King Khalid International Airport, located 35 kilometers north of the Saudi capital Riyadh, in retaliation for Saudi\u2019s devastating aerial bombardment campaign against Yemen.<\/p>\n

\u201cShould the blockade continue, we know what (targets) would cause great pain and how to reach them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of the Houthi movement supporters gathered in the Sabaeen Square of Sana\u2019a on Thursday afternoon to commemorate the\u00a0birth\u00a0anniversary of\u00a0Prophet Muhammad\u00a0(PBUH), heeding a call to attend the event.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Supporters of Yemen’s Ansarullah movement gather in the Sabaeen Square of the capital Sana\u2019a on November 30, 2017 to commemorate the\u00a0birth\u00a0anniversary of\u00a0Prophet Muhammad\u00a0(PBUH). (Photo by AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rally came after late night mediation attempts between supporters of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and the Houthi Ansarullah movement failed to reconcile both sides.<\/p>\n

Yemeni security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said deadly clashes between Houthi Ansarullah fighters and Saleh\u2019s supporters continued for a second day on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The officials said Ansarullah fighters moved against forces loyal to Saleh while accusing the latter of fomenting a coup with the help of the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n

It appeared the clashes began on Wednesday evening with a dispute over the capital’s Saleh Mosque, where Houthis wanted to hold festivities for Prophet Muhammad’s birthday.<\/p>\n

The skirmishes killed nine Ansarullah fighters and five loyalists to the former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia has been incessantly pounding Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstate Hadi, who is a staunch ally of the Riyadh regime.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A Yemeni child suffering from diphtheria receives treatment at a hospital in the capital Sana\u2019a on November 22, 2017.\u00a0(Photo by AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More than 12,000 people have been killed since the onset of the campaign more than two and a half years ago. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country’s infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble due to the war.<\/p>\n

The Saudi-led war has also triggered a deadly cholera epidemic across Yemen.<\/p>\n

According to the World Health Organization\u2019s\u00a0latest count, the cholera outbreak has killed 2,167 people since the end of April and is suspected to have infected 841,906.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the United Nations Children’s Fund\u00a0(UNICEF) said that more than 11 million Yemeni children in Yemen are in acute need of aid, stressing that it is estimated that every 10 minutes a child dies of a preventable disease there.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • ‘Over 11 million Yemeni children in dire need of aid’<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Meanwhile, the United Nations has described the current level of hunger in Yemen as \u201cunprecedented,\u201d emphasizing that 17\u00a0million people are now food insecure in the country.<\/p>\n

    It added that 6.8 million, meaning almost one in four people, do not have enough food and rely entirely on external assistance.<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    This photo taken on November 14, 2017, shows an armed Yemeni man looking at a communications tower that was destroyed in Saudi airstrikes in the city of Ta\u2019izz. (Photo by AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    A recent survey showed that\u00a0almost one third of families have gaps in their diets, and hardly ever consume foods like pulses, vegetables, fruit, dairy products or meat.<\/p>\n

    More than\u00a03 million pregnant and nursing women and children under 5 also need support to prevent or cure malnutrition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The leader of Yemen’s Ansarullah movement,\u00a0Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, has promised retaliatory attacks in response to a land, aerial and naval blockade imposed on his impoverished country by a Saudi-led military alliance. Addressing his supporters via a televised speech from the Yemeni capital Sana\u2019a on Thursday, Houthi warned against \u201ctightening the blockade.\u201d Riyadh imposed a tight blockade …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":12206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-islamic-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12207,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12205\/revisions\/12207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}