Yemeni naval forces target Emirati vessel off Mukha coast

This picture released by the media bureau of Yemen’s Joint Operations Command shows an Emirati military vessel in flames after being targeted by Yemeni forces off the coast of the Red Sea port city of Mukha, southwestern Yemen, on October 1, 2016.

Yemeni naval forces, backed by fighters from Popular Committees, have reportedly targeted an Emirati military vessel in a missile attack off the coast of the country’s southwestern province of Ta'izz.

A military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that the frigate was targeted with a guided missile in waters near the port city of Mukha, situated 346 kilometers south of the capital Sana'a, on Saturday afternoon.

Chairman of Yemen Naval Academy, Mohammed Ali al-Ghaderi, said the vessel was apparently transferring munitions from the Eritrean port city of Assab to Yemen.

The development came less than a week after Yemeni forces and their allies destroyed a gunboat of the Saudi-led coalition off the coast of Yemen’s western province of Hudaydah.

An unnamed military source asserted that the Saudi vessel was carrying out radar jamming and deception against the Yemeni army when it was targeted with a missile on July 24.

On January 30, Yemeni army forces, backed by fighters from allied Popular Committees, fired a guided missile at al-Madinah warship in waters near the city of Hudaydah.

The Saudi-led coalition, which is assisting Riyadh in its war on Yemen, later confirmed the incident but claimed only five people had lost lives in the attack.

Yet, footage of the raid, provided by Yemeni forces, showed the enormity of the explosion and subsequent fire on the deck of the Saudi vessel.

On January 21, the Yemeni Coast Guard warned enemies’ battleships against using the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, to bomb civilian targets, emphasizing that such a practice poses grave threats to international maritime navigation in the area.

In October 2016, Yemeni forces and fighters from the Popular Committees destroyed an Emirati HSV-2 Swift hybrid catamaran off the shores of Mukha.

Yemeni army forces had destroyed a Saudi warship in a missile attack in the southwestern coast of Yemen, in the Bab el-Mandeb, on October 10, 2015.  

The development came only days after Yemeni forces managed to destroy another Saudi vessel in the area, with reports saying that the sunken ship had repeatedly fired rockets on residential areas in Ta'izz Province.