Yemeni drone targets Saudi-led military parade in Aden

A Qasef K2 drone hit the parade at Ras Abbas military camp in the Mediterranean port city, where Yemen's Saudi-backed former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi is based.

A Yemeni military source described the operation as successful. The Saudi-owned Al-Hadath channel later quoted sources claiming that the air defenses shot down a drone west of Aden.

"There is no safe place for the forces of aggression inside or outside Yemen” after the Aden operation, spokesman for Yemeni armed forces Brigadier General Yahya Sare'e wrote on his Facebook page.

"The enemy should have learned a lesson from the Al Anad Air Base incident, but taking the Yemeni wisdom and talent lightly will open the gates of hell to them," Sare'e said. 

He was referring to a drone strike in Lahij province on January 10, which killed several military commanders, including Hadi's deputy army chief of staff General Saleh Zindani.

“The bank of targets is widening day by day,” Sare'e said. 

Last month, the Houthi movement said as many as 300 vital targets in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as well as in Yemen were in its crosshairs. 

The warning came after the Yemeni army launched retaliatory drone attacks on a major oil pumping station deep inside Saudi Arabia, forcing state crude giant Aramco to temporarily shut down the pipeline.

Yemen’s Defense Minister Mohammed Nasser al-Atifi said on Saturday the country has made great strides in its defense sector, which will “surprise” Saudi Arabia and its allies. 

“We have surprises ... that they can never see coming,” he said, adding Yemen is currently in the final stages of developing various air defenses.

The impoverished nation is the target of daily airstrikes by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which have destroyed the country's infrastructure and killed several thousand civilians. 

Last month, the Wall Street Journal described Yemen's Houthis as the world’s “most proficient” group in using unmanned aerial vehicles, saying it has greatly upgraded the precision of its armed drones.

The Houthis “have launched armed drone attacks with far more precision and reach than the US and its Persian Gulf allies have publicly acknowledged,” the leading American newspaper said.

The paper touched on a Houthi drone attack on Abu Dhabi Airport in July 2018, which was denied by the United Arab Emirates.  

Several sources told the Wall Street Journal that “despite the denial at the time, this attack did indeed happen,” the paper said. 

The reason for the cover-up was that had the attack gone publicly known, "it could have had widespread economic ramifications for the UAE and other countries in the Persian Gulf region", it  added.