Houthi military escalation in Hodeidah to try to impede the deployment of observers
English - Tuesday 22 October 2019 الساعة 06:01 pm
Aden – NewsYemen.net
Houthi militias, Iran's arm in Yemen, on Monday night bombed joint forces positions in southern Hodeidah to continue military escalation, defy truce efforts and stabilize the ceasefire.
According to military sources in the field that the Houthi militias shelled by the Howitzer artillery and a number of B10 shells locations where the joint forces soldiers are heavily stationed.
It pointed out that the Houthi gunmen started intensive fire on the sites, following the shelling operations, with various types of medium and light machine guns of 12.7 caliber and 14.5 caliber and with a pica rate weapon and sniper weapons.
One soldier was martyred and two others were wounded by snipers of the Houthi militias during the field implementation of the procedures for fixing the third point of observation in Kilo 16 while waiting for the arrival of the head of the UN mission and his team.
The militias sent 50 gunmen as reinforcements to the north of Hays district, south of the province.
Within three days, the Mission and the Joint Liaison Officers teams were able to establish and install three checkpoints, with one remaining to be confirmed on Tuesday, respectively, in the sectors of Kilo 8, Al-Saleh City, Kilo 16 and Mandhar Village.
It is scheduled to finish on Tuesday the installation of the last and fourth control point in the airport area in Al-Mandhar neighborhood south of the city of Hodeidah.
The spokesman for the joint forces in the west coast, said that the second phase of the process of deployment and installation of ceasefire monitoring points in Hodeidah will begin about two weeks from the completion of the first phase, followed by a third phase of the descent and the participation of international observers.
