At least 14 soldiers and 15 militiamen of the pro-government forces in Yemen were killed in an attack by militants on an army checkpoint in Hadramaut province in the east of the country, the BBC reports. It was assumed that Al-Qaeda, which has captured a significant portion of the province of Hadramaut this year, was responsible for the attack, but later the extremist group ‘Islamic State’ published a message on a social network and claimed responsibility for the attack. The Jihadists claim to have killed about 50 Yemeni military personnel, while the group had lost one man – the suicide bomber who blew up the car.
At the same time the international coalition led by Saudi Arabia continues to inflict strikes on the Yemeni territory. However, as suggested by the Deputy Director of the Institute of Forecasting and Settlement of Political Conflicts, Alexander Kuznetsov, the military operation of Saudi Arabia and its allies in Yemen has not reached its goal. "Despite the air raids, air strikes, which have killed 5600 people, according to the official data, in fact there were many more, there has been great destruction. But the military power of the Houthi groups, the groups of [ex-President Ali Abdullah] Saleh , have not been destroyed, and more than that, not even badly damaged".
The ground operations in Yemen, which began in September, in general, are proceeding pretty badly, facing difficulties."Firstly, after the events known at the beginning of September, when a Tochka-U missile destroyed, according to some sources, 80 Saudi and UAE soldiers, on the other, 120 people, of course the enthusiasm of Saudi Arabia to fight was diminished. Now some very strange contingent is being formed, some Sudanese armed forces. There is information that representatives of private military companies from Europe, the USA and Latin America are being involved. I believe this is absolutely unacceptable. Because it puts the trump card in the hands of the terrorists and extremists in the region. Of course, if people arrive, non-Muslims in the country to fight Muslims, then this won’t lead to anything good, and we know it well. And this very scratch contingent that will fight in Yemen, there is no certainty that it can achieve any great military success ", Alexander Kuznetsov says.
According to him, ‘’There is fighting in the city of Taiz, once one of the largest cities in Yemen, there has been vast destruction in the city. But a great success has not been reached by the coalition, despite the rather fierce shelling from both sides, the rather fierce fighting. That is, the military operation has come to a standstill of some kind, in general, this was predicted by many experts, analysts from the beginning when it all started, Saudi Arabia, actually, got its Afghanistan. And more than that, the Saudi army is not prepared for prolonged military conflict, a conflict of such duration. There is no combat experience, there is no coordination, and so on. To date, it is clear that there is no alternative to a political dialogue in Yemen. And the attempts of both sides to resolve the case by military means, to destroy each other, are doomed to failure.’’
