Former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh for the first time confirmed Sunday his alliance with the Houthi forces, also known as Ansarullah.
“Earlier I was not an ally of Ansarullah, but today I declare that the Yemeni people will be an ally of anyone who protects national interests in the face of the Saudi aggression,” Saleh said Sunday in an address to the nation broadcasted by the al-Yemen al-Youm TV channel, Sputnik said in a report.
The Saudi-led coalition warplanes on Sunday conducted several airstrikes on Saleh’s house in the capital Sanaa. Several people reportedly died, but Saleh and members of his family were not injured.
He also called on all the citizens of Yemen to defend their country against the aggression.
On March 26, the Saudi-led coalition of Arab states started conducting airstrikes on Yemen, targeting Houthi positions at the request of fugitive president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.
More than 1,400 people, about half of them civilians, have died in Yemen since mid-March, according to the recent UN estimates.
Malaysia Joins the Coalition
Malaysian troops arrived Sunday in Saudi Arabia to join the Saudi-led coalition against Houthis in Yemen, the Saudi state news agency reported.
According to the agency, Malaysia became the 12th country to join the coalition, a week after Senegal announced that 2,000 of its troops would join the coalition.
The coalition’s operations center is preparing plans for the participation of the Malaysian and Senegalese forces and the nature of the tasks to be assigned to them, the report said.
The new agency gave no details about the number of Malaysian troops that had arrived or whether other would follow. It also did not clarify whether they were ground troops or air force personnel.
In related news, A Moroccan F-16 jet fighter from the Saudi-led coalition went missing on Sunday, the Moroccan Royal Armed Forces said in a statement.
“One of the F-16s of the Royal Armed Force (FAR) made at the disposal of the coalition led by Saudi Arabia to restore the legitimacy in Yemen went missing on Sunday at 6 p.m. local time,” FAR’s statement said.
The pilot of a second jet in the same squadron didn’t manage to see if the pilot had ejected, according to the statement.
