Emirati officials vowed that the deaths in a missile attack in the battleground eastern oil province of Marib would not sap their commitment to the coalition’s mission to restore exiled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.
The missile hit an arms depot, triggering huge explosions that the exiled government said also killed five Bahraini coalition troops.
The UAE denounced the attack as “cowardly” but the Shiite Huthi rebels hailed it as “revenge” for six months of deadly coalition air strikes.
The coalition launched its air war when Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia in March after the rebels entered his last refuge, Yemen’s second city Aden. After his loyalists recaptured the southern port city in July, the coalition launched a ground operation which has seen the rebels pushed back from five southern provinces, although they still control the capital Sanaa and much of the north and centre.
UAE troops have played a leading role in the operation and seven had already been killed in the fighting. But Friday’s losses were the heaviest since the formation of the United Arab Emirates in 1971 and, as the bodies of the dead were flown home today, the country began three days of national mourning.
UAE warplanes retaliated with pre-dawn bombing raids against the rebels in <g data-gr-id="25">Marib</g> and Sanaa as well as their stronghold of Saada in the far north and the central city of Ibb, state media reported.
Coalition aircraft unleashed waves of air strikes on the rebel-held capital from the early hours, sowing panic among residents. “These are the heaviest air strikes that Sanaa has endured,” a local official said.The streets remained deserted as the bombing continued into the daylight hours.