DUBAI, United Arab Emirates —
Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Friday evening claimed
an attack on a southern oil port, the first of its kind since a truce came to
an end earlier this month.
اضافة اعلان
The attack was
carried out by two drones but did not lead to casual-ties or damage, the Yemeni
government said, warning that it was keeping “all options” on the table in
response to the attack.
It is the first operation
of its kind claimed by the Houthis since the end of a six-month truce between
Yemen’s warring parties on October 2.
The Iran-backed
Houthis, who control the capital and most of north-ern Yemen, said in a
statement they had carried out a “minor warning strike” Friday on the
government-controlled Al-Dhaba port in Hadra-maut province.
The heavily armed
rebels have been demanding that the government, backed by a Saudi-led military
coalition, pay the salaries of employees and retired soldiers in the areas
under rebel control.
The attack was
launched “to prevent the continuation of the wide-spread looting of oil wealth
and the failure to allocate it to serve the people ... and pay the salaries of
the employees,” the statement said.
Hadramaut Governor
Mubarak Mabkhout said in a statement that two drones exploded in waters near a
ship that was preparing to dock in the port in southern Yemen, about 550km
south of the capital.
“No material or
human damage was recorded,” a government military official told AFP.
“All options are on
the table to deal with the terrorist attack,” the gov-ernment said, while
Information Minister Muammar Al-Iryani de-scribed the attack as a “dangerous
escalation”.
The conflict
erupted in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital Sa-naa, prompting the
Saudi-led coalition to intervene the following year to prop up the
internationally recognized government.
Hundreds of
thousands of people have died as a direct or indirect re-sult of the conflict,
according to the UN, which says the Arab region’s poorest country is suffering
the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Efforts by the UN envoy to Yemen to revive the six-month
truce end-ed in stalemate early this month, as the Yemeni government and the
Houthis failed to reach an agreement to extend it.
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