Qatari forces cross into Yemen through S Arabia: Report

Mon Sep 7, 2015 9:28AM

Photo by Yemen Press shows Qatari troops heading toward Yemen from Saudi Arabia's al-Wadia crossing.

Around 1,000 Qatari military forces have reportedly joined the Saudi troops in their ground invasion of impoverished Yemen.

Al-Jazeera news channel reported on Monday that the troops entered Yemen through Saudi Arabia’s al-Wadia border crossing.
The report said that Qatari forces were backed by more than 200 armored vehicles and 30 Apache combat helicopters.
According to the report, with the deployment of the Qatari troops in Yemen, the number of Persian Gulf Arab countries’ forces in the war-hit country will increase to 10,000.
Qatar is the third Persian Gulf Arab country after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain to dispatch army forces in support of the Saudi aggression against Yemen.

Soldiers stand on a Saudi tank deployed on the outskirts of the southern Yemeni port city of Aden on August 3, 2015. (© AFP)

Earlier this week, 2,800 Saudi Special Forces along with intelligence and logistics officers entered Yemen.
Media close to Yemen's fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi also claim that Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait and Egypt are set to dispatch troops to the Yemeni provinces of Aden, Tai’zz, Ma’rib and Hudaydah.
Earlier on Friday, Yemen’s Ansarullah fighters and their allied army units fired a missile at an arms depot at a military base in Yemen’s eastern province of Ma’rib, killing at least 45 Emirati nationals as well as five Bahraini citizens in retaliation.
Meanwhile on Sunday, Saudi fighter jets pounded areas north of the capital, Sana’a, leaving 20 Yemeni civilians dead.
Riyadh’s heavy air raids targeted a maternity hospital, the presidential complex and a university north of Sana’a.

A Yemeni man walks amid debris following Saudi airstrikes in the capital, Sana’a, on September 5, 2015. (© AFP)

Saudi fighter jets also attacked provinces of Ma’rib, Sa’ada, Hajjah, Ta’izz and Jawf. A civilian was killed in Ta’izz.
On March 26, Saudi Arabia began its aggression against Yemen – without a UN mandate – in a bid to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and restore power to Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.
The conflict has so far left about 4,500 people dead and thousands of others wounded, the UN says. Local Yemeni sources, however, say the fatality figure is much higher.