Yemen says Houthi attack is revenge for Soleimani, calls on UN to condemn

Yemeni Minister of Information Moammar al-Eryani says the Houthi missile and drone attack on a military camp in Marib is an act of revenge for Iran’s Qassem Soleimani’s killing, calling on the UN to condemn the attack.

“The attack by Iran’s mercenaries, “the Houthi militia”, with Iranian missiles … as an act of revenge for the killing of Soleimani is a terrorist crime,” al-Eryani said in a tweet on Sunday.

The Iran-backed Houthi militia killed at least 79 soldiers and wounded 150 more in a missile and drone attack on a training camp in Yemen on Saturday, in one of the deadliest attacks of the five-year-old civil war.

The minister condemned the UN’s silence after the attack and the Iranian escalation of the conflict in Yemen, “which threatens to destroy efforts of ending the war.”

“We call on the UN special envoy Martin Griffiths to take a position and condemn this savage attack … because silence gives green light for more crimes,” the Yemeni minister added.

The bombing marks a further escalation of the proxy war playing out in the Middle East, and comes two weeks after the US killed one of Iran’s most powerful military leaders, Qassem Soleimani, in a drone attack in Iraq.

The Houthi attack hit a warehouse and a mosque at a military base in Marib, where soldiers were performing evening prayer. The personnel killed included members of the Fourth Brigade of the presidential guard and the air force, military sources said.