Saleh al-Samad, the president of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, was among the officials attending the event, during which the missiles belonging to the country’s Navy and Coastguard were put on display, the official Saba’ Net news agency reported on Monday.
Speaking during the event, a senior Yemeni navy commander said the “high-precision” missiles, dubbed Mandab 1, are manufactured at home.
Ansarullah, the national army and popular groups have joined forces to defend the country against an ongoing brutal military campaign launched in 2015 by the Saudi kingdom and a coalition of its allies with the aim of reinstalling the former Riyadh-backed government in Yemen.
Yemen’s stiff resistance has prevented Saudi Arabia from achieving the goals of war, despite spending billions of dollars on the war and enlisting the cooperation of Western countries, particularly the US and the UK.
The exhibition was held a day after the Yemeni army said that it had targeted Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh with a long distance Borkan H2 ballistic missile in retaliation for the Riydah regime’s bloody attacks against the impoverished nation.
The Saudi-led coalition, in a Sunday statement, put the blame for the missile strike on Iran, and unleashed threats against the Islamic Republic. The Riyadh regime has long the Houthis of receiving financial and arms support from Tehran.
Tehran has repeatedly rejected such baseless accusations. The Iranian Foreign Ministry rejected the Sunday statement as “destructive, irresponsible, provocative,” stressing that Yemenis had showed an “independent” reaction to the Saudi-led acts of aggression against the nation.
On Sunday, the kingdom announced that it is shutting down all Yemen’s air, sea, and land border, after Yemen targeted the international airport near Riyadh.
