SANAA: Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom have been contributing to Saudi Arabias deadly war on Yemen by sending warplanes to bomb the impoverished nation, a Yemeni army official claimed on Thursday.
Sharaf Luqman, a spokesman for the Yemeni army, said on Thursday that fighter jets belonging to the US, Britain and even Israel have been directly bombing Yemen as Saudi pilots are unable to conduct sorties with modern warplanes over Yemen.
The army official said that Yemeni army and fighters of the Houthi Ansarullah movement have so far managed to down three F-16 fighter jets,10 Apache helicopters and dozens of drones.
Luqman said about 400 military personnel from the European and Latin American countries, mainly from Colombia, have been recruited to fight for the Saudis in Yemen.
Reports emerged in late December 2015 that six Colombian troops and an Australian commander had been killed in clashes with Yemens Houthi fighters and allied forces in the southwestern part of the country.
According to Yemeni sources, the Colombians have been dispatched to Yemen under an agreement between the United Arab Emirates, a major ally of the Saudis in the Yemen war, and a US-based security services company formerly called Blackwater.
The New York Times reported on November 25 that the UAE has secretly deployed 450 Latin American troops, most of them from Colombia but among them Panamanian, Salvadoran and Chilean soldiers, to fight in the war on Yemen.
Washington has also been helping the Saudis in their bombardment of Yemen by providing logistics and intelligence to the Saudi air force.
Saudi Arabia has been carrying out a relentless air campaign against Yemen over the past 10 months, killing more than 8,300 people and displacing hundreds of thousands, according to coalition of rights groups.
The air strikes, which started on March 26, have been meant to undermine Houthis and allies and restore power to fugitive president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, who is a staunch ally of Riyadh.
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