WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
port and caused a “minor fire” at
the international airport, killing
two Indian nationals and a Paki-
stani.
The retaliatory strikes on San-
aa were launched after the UAE
Foreign Ministry said the attackon Abu Dhabi would “not go
unpunished,” in a rare acknowl-
edgment of a Houthi attack in-
side Emirati territory.
Even as the dust settled from
the blasts in Sanaa, neighbors
were scrambling over the rubbleto find survivors. Naseer Abdul-
hakim al-Hebshi, 27, a childhood
friend of Junaid’s son, rushed
one of the family’s nephews to
the hospital, where he was pro-
nounced dead. He returned to
the house and began digging
through the rubble, where he
found Junaid.
“He was dead, and his body
was torn in the abdomen,” he
said. “It was such a horrific
scene.”
Later that night, an exhausted
Hebshi returned to the hospital
where he found the body of his
childhood friend, Majed, and
passed out from the shock.
Murad Abdo Ali, 2 6, a pharma-
cist who lives nearby, joined the
rescue efforts, helping to retrievedismembered limbs from under
the rubble.
“There was fire and smoke
everywhere,” he said. “We col-
lected what body parts we could
find and put them in black
plastic bags.”
Mabrook Hizam Mubarak, 23,
a pharmacist who at the time of
the attack was visiting relatives
who live behind the Junaid fam-
ily’s home, heard a child crying
after the first strike. He scaled
the outside of the house and
found “a young girl, around 3
years old, with her unconscious
mother and infant sister,” he
said.
He helped lower the mother
and infant from the second floor,
then grabbed the child andBY ALI AL-MUJAHED
AND SIOBHÁN O’GRADYsanaa, yemen — The two air-
strikes came in rapid succession
just after 9 p.m. on Monday,
leveling a two-story family home
in the Houthi-controlled Yemeni
capital soon after the group
claimed responsibility for a
deadly attack on the United Arab
Emirates.
Inside the house in the upper-
class residential neighborhood
were more than a dozen relatives
and employees of Brig. Gen.
Abdullah Qassem al-Junaid, who
once led the air force academy in
Sanaa. Saudi state media outlets
said Junaid was a top Houthi
official, but neighbors said he
had already retired from the
academy.
Junaid, his wife, Enas, his son
Majed and at least five other
members of his household, in-
cluding guards and a maid, were
killed in the attack, a family
member said. Several homes
nearby were also damaged,
and four neighbors, including
a doctor, were among those
killed.
The strike was described by
Saudi media as a blow against
the Houthi command structure
after the movement’s brazen
strike on the UAE earlier that
day. B ut for m any of the p eople in
the rubble of the shattered build-
ings, it was just another day of
lives lost in the grinding proxy
war tearing the country apart
and creating one of the world’s
worst humanitarian crises.
The strikes, launched by the
Saudi-led coalition that inter-
vened in Yemen in 2015 against
the Houthis, came hours after
the attack on Abu Dhabi, capital
of the UAE.
The UAE is a partner of the
coalition that has been battling
the Houthis since shortly after
the group took over the Yemeni
capital. The suspected drone
strike blew up three petroleum
tanker trucks near Abu Dhabi’s
jumped just moments before the
second airstrike. His foot was
injured in the incident.
Although the coalition regu-
larly strikes targets inside Sanaa,
Monday’s were among the dead-
liest to hit the city in recent
years. Mutahar Almarwani, di-
rector general of the health office
in Sanaa, said 14 people were
killed and another 11 injured.
Two are in intensive care. Several
more airstrikes hit Sanaa early
Wednesday.
Nasraddin Amer, the deputy
minister of information in
Houthi-controlled Sanaa, said
Monday that the attacks on Abu
Dhabi were in retaliation for the
UAE’s “escalation” in the conflict
in Yemen, where UAE-backed
forces have recently scored victo-
ries in the contested provinces of
Shabwa and Marib.
Over the past year, m uch of the
fighting in Yemen has been fo-
cused in Marib, an oil-and-gas-
rich province that is the govern-
ment’s last major stronghold in
the country’s north. The Iranian-
backed Houthis have advanced
toward the city over the past
year, and both sides have suf-
fered significant casualties on
the front lines, where the
Houthis are also deploying
drones in combat.
The Houthis have regularly
launched drones and missiles at
the countries of the coalition,
mainly hitting targets in Saudi
Arabia, including oil facilities
and airports. They have called
the attacks retribution for the
coalition airstrikes but generally
result in another round of retal-
iatory bombings.
The Monday attack on the
Emirati capital demonstrated
th e group’s continued ability to
strike targets in the gulf, an
increasing concern for Yemen’s
neighbors as the conflict drags
on.
The fight for Marib has served
as a major obstacle to interna-
tional efforts to resolve the sev-
en-year war. Meanwhile, a wide-
spread humanitarian crisis is
plaguing the country, with many
people displaced from their
homes and millions on the brink
of starvation.
siobhan.o’[email protected]O’Grady reported from Cairo.More than a dozen killed in retaliatory airstrikes in Yemen after attack on UAE
PHOTOS BY YAHYA ARHAB/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK
Top and right: People inspect the wreckage of buildings hit by
airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen. The strikes, launched by the Saudi-led
coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 against the Houthi
rebels, came hours after the group claimed responsibility for a
deadly attack on Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.Attack comes hours after
a suspected Houthi drone
struck port in Abu Dhabi