TEHRAN - The spokesman for Yemen’s armed forces had provided details of a massive offensive carried out by the country’s armed forces dubbed operation Spring of Victory (Rabi Al Naser). Speaking at a live presentation of the latest military gains, Yahya Sare’e gave details of the retaliatory action against Saudi Arabia and the militants it backs in the Yemeni provinces of Ma’arib and Shabwah.

Various units of the country’s armed forces participated in operation Spring of Victory. He said Yemen’s drone force conducted 268 offensives, including 161 attacks that targeted positions belonging to the enemy, occupying areas inside Yemen, and 107 operations that struck territory inside Saudi Arabia itself; these attacks, he said, targeted cites including Saudi military bases and airbases. 

The country’s missile force participated in 130 operations, including 95 in the occupied Yemeni territories and 35 operations that struck Saudi Arabia. The Air Defense Forces also played a part in shooting down four enemy reconnaissance planes. These included a CH-4 plane, in addition to two Scan Eagle planes and a Wing Loong UAV.

Sare’e said there had been successful anti-aircraft operation missions; despite the vast ongoing U.S. backed Saudi airstrikes. During the Spring of Victory operation, the Saudi-American aggression’s air raids, he said, intensified to a total of 705 air raids on Yemeni territory. 
The spokesman declared that “if the enemy believes that warplanes will prevent the advance of our forces or break the will of our soldiers and warriors, our enemy is delusional; this is our land, and its liberation is a moral, legal and religious obligation”. 

He added that “history will not write anything other than that this (Yemeni) nation was steadfast, did not back down from its duties, rather it carried on with the path of liberation, despite the airstrikes and the occupation [of its land]”. He said, “for this reason, the liberation of Yemen, it’s land and sea, is a crucial battle for the nation’s independence”. 

The country’s armed spokesman pointed out the results of the operation on a geographic level as well, saying “the districts of Usaylan, Bayhan and Ain were liberated in Shabwa, and the districts of Harib and Al-Abdiyyah and parts of the districts of Jabal Murad and Al-Juba in Ma’arib were liberated”. 

“A total of 3200 square kilometers were liberated during Spring of Victory Operation,” he said the armed forces will continue to advance in the strategic province of Ma’arib”. Some of the areas that were recently liberated in Marib had been and remained headquarters for the Takfiri [terrorist] gangs with the backing and support of “the coalition of aggression”. He said the ministry of defense and local councils will now take on responsibility for the liberated areas. 

Sare’e then carried on with the presentation by announcing the results of the losses afflicted against the enemy forces of which there were many heavy defeats on the battleground. 

The Spring of Victory Operation led to the “killing, wounding and capturing of 1,840 enemy military personnel, including 550 that had been killed, 1,200 that were wounded and 90 captured”. Among the enemy aggressors who had been killed, there were leaders from “so-called Daesh and Al-Qaeda” Takfiri terrorist groups, which used the al-Abdiyyah region as a den and received support and logistics from the “coalition of aggression” and enemy mercenary commanders in Ma’arib. 

Among the losses incurred on the Saudi-led coalition were around 160 vehicles, armored vehicles and military personnel carriers that were either damaged, burned or destroyed, in addition to 180 medium to heavy weapon systems that had been destroyed.

“During the operation, our forces succeeded in destroying five [enemy] weapons depots. Dozens of armored vehicle and vehicles belonging to Saudi-led coalition were seized”. 

He said, “the heavy losses among Saudi-American backed mercenaries force us to call on them to halt fighting”, indicating they were heading for a heavy loss. He noted the importance of the media to emphasize how vital an independent Yemen would be for all Yemenis, including any traitors fighting on behalf of Saudi Arabia and America. 

The spokesman says Yemen’s army, allied forces from the Popular took part in the operation, pledging to fully liberate the key city of Ma’rib from the Saudi occupiers as well as the now limited number of mercenaries and traitors still positioned in the city. 

He praised all the armed forces, local popular committees and tribes that have chosen to stand firm in defending their land, people and country. He lauded their dignity, freedom and their refusal to side with any foreign enemy forces or betray their country. 

The spokesman said one of the aspects that stood out in operation Spring of Victory was the bravery of the Yemeni forces that fought with dignity and forced the “mercenaries, infiltrators and traitors” who fought on behalf of the foreign occupiers but fled the battlefield. He noted that the fate of the mercenaries and the traitors is heavy punishment unless they lay down their arms while assuring the residents of the liberated areas of safety and security. The spokesman also promised the residents of regions still not liberated, especially in Ma’arib, that their freedom would soon arrive. 

Yemeni forces took control of the liberated areas, sometimes following fierce clashes with Saudi-sponsored militants loyal to former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Saudi Arabia, backed by the United States and some regional allies, launched a war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the Hadi government back to power and crushing the popular Ansarullah movement that spearheaded the people’s revolution in the months prior to the war. 

The war has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead, and displaced millions more. It has also destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and caused famine and other infectious diseases across the country. Yemeni armed forces and the Popular Committees have grown steadily in strength against the Saudi-led invaders, and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the country.

Military experts says it a matter of time before the Yemeni forces take control of Ma’arib, the last strategic bastion Saudi Arabia loosely controls in the country’s north. Ma’arib is energy rich and re-capturing it can help the National Salvation Government in Yemen to invest in much needed vital services.

At the same time, should Ma’arib be liberated in its entirety, it would leave Riyadh with only pockets of territory in its control in Southern Yemen. But even there, the Kingdom’s forced have often clashed with its own allies from the UAE backed southern separatist forces. 

Nevertheless, the National Salvation Government has vowed to liberate all of Yemen from the north to the south and not allow what it says is a U.S. backed plot to separate Yemen in two halves again. The army backed by Ansarullah says it will immediately focus on the south once its liberates the entire province of Ma’arib from Saudi Arabi’s grip. 

Over the past few years, the Saudi Kingdom has lost the upper hand in a war it waged backed in March 2015 and declared it would take a few weeks to finish. After Riyadh imposed an all-out blockade on its southern neighbor, Yemeni forces began producing and then mass producing indigenous drones and missiles. The weapons have played an instrumental role by launching retaliatory attacks deep inside the Kingdom, inflicting heavy damage on and forcing the Saudis to search for the nearest exit door out of this Vietnam style quagmire.