Ansarullah Vows to Use New Missile to Change Equations in Yemen War

"The missile will most likely change the military trend of the war," Abdolquds al-Shahari, a media official of Ansarullah, was quoted by the Russian Sputnik news agency as saying today.

Elsewhere, he blasted the Saudi-led coalition which has launched the devastating war against Yemen for destroying all the existing mechanisms for a negotiated settlement to the crisis.

"In our view, the solution to the crisis should be Yemeni-Yemeni talks without any foreign and regional pressures," Abdolquds said.

A senior Ansarullah movement leader warned in December that the capital cities of all the Saudi-led coalition member states are within the range of Yemen's missiles.

Zeifollah al-Shami, a senior Ansarullah politburo member, was quoted by the Iranian media as saying that the movement's missile strike against Abu Dhabi was "a message to other aggressive states".

"Ansarullah which has earlier targeted Riyadh once and Abu Dhabi in the UAE twice is able to target the capital of any other country that is a member of the aggressive coalition and has launched war against Yemen and occupied it," he added.

"Also, we gave a direct response to the UAE as the main supporter of militias affiliated to Abdullah Saleh (former Yemeni president who was killed on Monday while escaping from Sana'a to the UAE) as Saleh had strong ties with the UAE because he owns assets and properties in there and his children live there. Saleh and the UAE were fully coordinated but they were disgraced finally and their real being came under the spotlight," al-Shami said.

Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen since March 2015 to restore power to fugitive President Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 15,500 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children.

Despite Riyadh's claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

The Saudi-led air campaign against Yemen has driven the impoverished country towards humanitarian disaster, as Saudi Arabia's deadly campaign prevented the patients from travelling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country, according to several reports.

A UN panel has compiled a detailed report of civilian casualties caused by the Saudi military and its allies during their war against Yemen, saying the Riyadh-led coalition has used precision-guided munitions in its raids on civilian targets.