File photo shows the aftermath of an attack against a funeral hall building in the Yemeni capital Sana’a on October 8, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement says the invading Saudi Arabia-led coalition has even ramped up its acts of aggression against the impoverished country after claiming it had initiated a voluntary ceasefire.

Tweeting on Monday, the popular Yemeni defense group’s spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Salam called the ceasefire claim false and misleading.

He denounced any claim on the part of the coalition alleging that it had begun observing self-restraint and accusing the Houthis of violating the ceasefire as ridiculous.

The coalition has been launching indiscriminate attacks against Yemen since March 2015 to put the country’s former Saudi-allied officials back in the saddle. The war has killed tens of thousands of Yemenis and rendered at least 80 percent of its 28-million-strong population dependent on aid for survival.

Last week, the invaders claimed they were halting military operations in support of United Nations peace efforts and to avoid further spread of the new coronavirus in Yemen.

The Yemeni Army, however, reported days afterwards that it had been forced to repel several Saudi-led assaults on various fronts in just one day.

Abdul-Salam likewise said not only had not the aggressors initiated any truce, but also they had escalated their offensives.

On Tuesday, Yemeni Armed Forces’ Spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree said allied Yemeni defense groups had thwarted a large-scale advance by Saudi-led mercenaries in west-central Ma’rib Province, Yemen’s al-Masirah television network reported. The retaliation inflicted heavy losses on the militants, he added.

The coalition had also launched six raids against the province’s Sirwah District and 14 aerial attacks against the Khabb wa ash Sha’af District in al-Jawf Province that neighbors Ma’rib to the north, Saree said.

Elsewhere, the coalition staged advances across the al-Bayda Province that lies to the south of Ma’rib and the Ta’izz Province that is located in Yemen’s extreme southwest, the official said.

A local official in the eastern Yemeni al-Mahrah Province that borders Oman, meanwhile, told Turkey’s state Anadolu news agency that Saudi Arabia had begun bringing military vehicles into the province.

Yemen reserves right to self-defense

The Ansarullah spokesperson said amid the increase in the offensives that the Yemeni Army and Popular Committees reserve the right to decisively defend the Yemeni nation.

The army and the committees have been acting as Ansarullah’s allies in the movement’s efforts to fend for the Arab world’s poorest nation.

SOURCE: PRESS TV