Guardian: Yemeni rebels say they shot down Moroccan jet
Monday 11 May 2015 12.25 BST
Shia rebels in
Yemen have claimed to have shot down a Moroccan F-16 fighter jet taking part in a Saudi-led coalition targeting them and their allies.
Morocco’s military, however, would only say that the jet had gone missing at about 6pm local time on Sunday.
A Saudi-owned news channel, al-Hadath, aired live footage on Monday of tanks and armoured personnel carriers loaded on to giant trucks, saying they were part of a “strike force” being deployed on the kingdom’s border with Yemen. There have been no signs to suggest that a ground offensive was imminent, although the coalition has not ruled one out.
Photos purportedly showing the downed aircraft on social media had armed tribesmen and children posing next to wreckage that bore Morocco’s national colours of red and green. A corpse also was seen.
The claim by the rebels, known as Houthis, was made by their mouthpiece television station al-Masar, saying the plane was brought down in the northern province of Saada.
The Houthis, as well as their allies in Yemen’s splintered armed forces, have routinely fired anti-aircraft guns at warplanes in the country since
the Saudi-led campaign against them began on 26 March.
Morocco’s state news agency, Map, cited a military statement saying the pilot of a second jet had not seen the pilot of the missing fighter plane eject. The military said it had launched an investigation into the plane’s disappearance, without elaborating on a cause.
Morocco has six F-16 jets stationed in the United Arab Emirates and taking part in the Saudi-led coalition, which includes a group of other Sunni countries. Iran is said to be backing the Houthis militarily, something the Islamic Republic and the rebels deny.
If confirmed, the Moroccan F-16 would be the second jet fighter to go down in the conflict. During the early days of the air campaign, a fighter jet crashed in the Arabian Sea off Yemen’s southern coast, but the pilot was picked up by a nearby navy vessel. Technical problems were said to have caused the crash.
The conflict in Yemen has killed more than 1,400 people – many of them civilians – since 19 March, according to the UN. A ceasefire,
scheduled to begin on Tuesday, would help ease the suffering of civilians in the Arab world’s poorest country. Yemenis are suffering from acute shortages of food, fuel and medicine as a result of the bombing campaign, as well as a naval, air and land blockade by the coalition.
On Monday,
Human Rights Watch said the blockade is keeping out fuel needed for the survival of the Yemeni population, contending that it was a violation of the “laws of war”.
Yemen, it said, urgently needed fuel to power generators for hospitals overwhelmed by wounded people and to pump drinking water. The coalition, it added, must urgently “implement measures for the rapid processing of oil tankers to allow the safe, secure, and speedy distribution of fuel supplies to the civilian population”.
All sides in the conflict have warned they will resume hostilities if the ceasefire is violated.
Yemen was expected to be discussed at a Camp David summit later this week between the United States and leaders of six Gulf, US-allied Arab nations, but
the kings of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have said they would not attend.
Photo from "
Houthi-wood" showing the weapon used to bring down the Moroccan F-16
