LONDON: The Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen said it launched airstrikes and destroyed explosive-laden boats in the Yemeni ports of Saleef and Hodeidah on Saturday, Saudi Press Agency reported.
According to the coalition, the four boats were still being built by the Houthis and their destruction thwarted “imminent attack on oil tankers.”
Three people working on the boats were said to have been killed in the strike on Saleef.
The coalition announced air strikes on various sites and “sources of threat in Sanaa and Hodeidah” on Friday in retaliation for attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, coalition spokesperson Brig. Gen Turki Al-Malki told Al Arabiya.
The coalition called on the Iranian-backed Houthi militia to “remove weapons from protected sites” including Sanaa international airport within a three-hour deadline on Saturday.
Keeping weapons in the airport of the Yemeni capital and other civilian areas would “end their status” as safe regions not to be targeted by the coalition’s strikes, it said.
The air strikes came despite exercising “the highest standard of restraint over Houthi attacks on oil facilities” in recent days, he said.
The coalition asked civilians to stay away from oil sites in Hodeidah, saying that it would take all efforts to direct strikes away from civilian facilities without compromising action against sites of credible threat.
Later on Saturday evening, the Coalition said it had destroyed an arms depot in the vicinity of Saleef port after the Houthi militia had transferred weapons into it.
The Houthis came in for widespread international condemnation on Saturday following attacks on Friday on oil facilities in Jazan and an Aramco storage site in Jeddah, with the US implicating Iran for enabling the attack by supplying weapons to the group against international law.
