Senior Yemeni military official says the country is ready for more retaliatory attacks vowing that further strikes against the United Arab Emirates will be more painful.

The recent Yemen Storm-2 operation conveyed the important message that the Yemeni army forces and their allied fighters from the Popular Committees will hit sensitive military targets deep inside the UAE, the deputy head of the Ideological Office of the Yemeni Armed Forces said in remarks published on Sunday.

In an interview with Tasnim news agency, Brigadier General Abed bin Muhammad al-Thawr also said that the large-scale operation alerted Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ) about the fact that he will suffer substantial losses for his sustained efforts to obtain Israel’s consent.

And Abu Dhabi will pay for such a wrong approach as a result, he said, referring to the normalization of ties between Israel and the UAE, which on Sunday led to the first official visit to Abu Dhabi by an Israeli president.

“The Yemen Storm-2 operation was a wake-up call to Emirati nationals. They must know that the repercussions of MBZ’s lack of common sense will be catastrophic and that they cannot stand the fallout at all. The UAE rulers must bear in mind that their country’s interests and capabilities will be targeted in case they leave their state’s affairs at the hands of bin Zayed,” Thawr said.

He highlighted, “Yemen’s deterrence capabilities are developing in line with the enemy’s moves… The Yemen Storm-2 operation showed that the UAE is weak and is bluffing about its military capabilities. The shock to the UAE economy and its stocks market’s plunge clearly manifested the extent of damage that Yemeni retaliatory strikes had on the country.”

“The UAE has been trying to secure a foothold in the region through its aggression against Yemen. However, the results have been the opposite, and the country is destroying itself indeed. The UAE is bogged down in a full-fledged quagmire,” the senior Yemeni military official added.

The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the Yemeni Army said the United States is not after the establishment of peace in Yemen, but is solely determined to plunder the Arab country’s natural resources and national assets.

“The US does not want peace in Yemen, and is instead seriously concerned with looting its natural resources, even at the expense of shedding the Yemeni people’s blood,” Yemen’s al-Masirah television network quoted Ali al-Mushki as saying on Sunday in a meeting with Deputy Head for the United Nations Mission to support the Hudaydah Agreement (UNMHA) Daniela Kroslak in Sana’a.

Mushki said Yemen’s National Salvation Government and the Yemeni nation will continue to put up resistance in the face of the aggressors and occupiers, stressing that the struggle will continue until the full liberation of all Yemeni territories.

“The ongoing [Saudi-led] onslaught on Yemen is due to the Arab country’s resolve for freedom. Yemen is bigger than countries and cantons created by colonial powers and supported by global imperialism,” he noted.

Yemeni women participated in a mass demonstration in Sana’a to denounce the Saudi-led coalition’s brutal airstrikes against various neighborhoods across the Yemeni capital.

They stressed the need to avenge the blood of innocent Yemenis killed in the air raids and praised major retaliatory operations by the Yemeni Armed Forces and Popular Committees against sensitive targets deep inside the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

The demonstrators also condemned the international community’s silence over Yemen’s tragic plight, holding the United Nations to account for its “collaboration” with the Saudi-led coalition.

They said the ongoing Saudi-led airstrikes and all-out siege on Yemen can all be categorized as war crimes.

Meanwhile, a senior member of Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement says his group extends its hand for lasting and honorable peace in the country.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of Ansarullah’s political bureau, wrote on his Twitter page that peace must guarantee the sovereignty and independence of Yemen, emphasizing that any initiative that fails to meets such aspirations is equal to “an invitation to capitulation.”

“If the parties, which demanded a military intervention in Yemen, turn down the peace offer, we will then continue our military operations until the entire Yemeni territories are liberated and the siege is lifted,” Bukhaiti noted.

He stated that a political solution to the conflict will be within reach only if all sides demonstrate genuine willingness and determination.

“We (Ansarullah) are prepared for intra-Yemeni talks either inside the country or in any neutral country, like Oman. The ball is now in the court of those who asked for the Saudi-led coalition” and its crimes, Bukhaiti said.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies, backed by the United States and European powers, launched the war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi back to power and crushing the Ansarullah movement.

The war has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead and displaced millions more. It has also destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases there.

Despite heavily-armed Saudi Arabia’s incessant bombardment of the impoverished country, the Yemeni armed forces have gradually grown stronger, leaving Riyadh and its allies, most notably the UAE, bogged down in the country.