Massive Blasts Rock Abu Dhabi amid Reports of Yemen Retaliation

By Staff, Agencies

Several "massive explosions" ring out across Abu Dhabi's skies shortly after Yemen's armed forces say they are about to announce a "large-scale" counteroffensive against the United Arab Emirates' "economic arteries."

The explosions were reported by several Arabic-language media outlets early on Monday.

Earlier, Yemen's al-Masirah network cited Yemeni Armed Forces Spokesman Brigadier General Yehya Saree as saying that the "forces are to announce a large-scale military operation in the Emirati depth in the coming hours."

The UAE is Saudi Arabia's main partner in a 2015-present war that Riyadh and its allies have been waging against Yemen to change the impoverished country's ruling structure.

The war on Yemen has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and turned the entire country into the scene of the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The Yemeni resistance forces, which feature the army and its allied fighters from the Popular Committees have, however, vowed not to lay down their arms until the country's complete liberation from the scourge of the Saudi-led invasion.

Confirming Saree's remarks, the alkhabaralyemeni.net news website said that the planned "unprecedented and destructive" counterblow was to target as many as 50 "sensitive sites" across the UAE.

The website, which was citing the "Military Information" department of Yemen's National Salvation Government in the capital Sanaa, reported that the retaliatory operation was to use as many as 300 drones, 50 ballistic missiles, and 46 cruise missiles.

The aircraft and the projectiles, it added, were to crush "the UAE's vital economic arteries."

Earlier this month, the Yemeni resistance carried out two operations codenamed the "Hurricane Yemen 1" and "Hurricane Yemen 2," which saw the resistance striking targets deep inside Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

A few days after the first operation, the Emirates grounded most private drones and light sports aircraft.

Meanwhile, Sabereen News, a Telegram news channel associated with Iraqi anti-terror Popular Mobilization Units, reported that the UAE had grounded all flights at the airports lying in the two Emirati cities amid fears of the pending retaliation.

The Emirati ministry of defense claimed that the country had intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile fired from the direction of Yemen.

Sabereen News, however, said the projectile had hit a shipbuilding factory in Abu Dhabi's Mussafah industrial area.

At the time of the missile counterstrike, President of the Zionist regime Isaac Herzog was on a visit to the UAE in the first such trip, more than a year after Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv signed a United States-brokered normalization agreement that provoked a sharp backlash in the region.

Although Reuters alleged that Herzog would continue his planned visit to the UAE regardless of the missile strike, ‘Israeli’ Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper cited the Zionist intelligence apparatus as asking Herzog "to leave the UAE immediately."