18 January 2022•Update: 18 January 2022
SANAA, Yemen
A Houthi commander was killed in a Saudi-led coalition airstrike in the capital Sanaa, the Yemeni rebel group said on Tuesday.
The Houthi-run Saba news agency said Brigadier General Abdullah Qassem al-Junaid, the head of the Aviation Academy, and his family were killed in an attack targeting his house late Monday.
There was no comment from the Saudi-led coalition on the report.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said earlier Tuesday that five family members were killed in Saudi-led airstrikes in Sanaa Monday overnight, calling for halting escalation in Yemen.
On Monday, the Saudi-led coalition said it targeted “terrorist leaders” north of Sanaa, without giving any further details.
In another statement on Tuesday, the coalition said it struck rebels sites and drone communication systems and warehouses in the Yemeni capital.
The attacks came hours after the Saudi air defense intercepted eight rebel drones fired from Yemen towards Saudi Arabia.
On Monday, three people were killed in Houthi attack on Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a member of the Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting Houthi rebels since 2015.
Yemen has been engulfed by violence and instability since 2014, when Iran-aligned Houthis captured much of the country, including Sanaa.
The conflict has caused one of the world’s worst man-made humanitarian crises, with nearly 80% or around 30 million people needing humanitarian assistance and protection and more than 13 million in danger of starvation, according to UN estimates.
