“The shooting down of our drones by the Italian Navy constitutes further confirmation of Italy’s desire to side with our enemies and defend Israel.” These are the comments made to ANSA by Abdennaser Mahamed, head of the media department of the Presidency of the (Houthi) Republic of Sanaa, specifying however that “for the moment Italy is not our direct objective”. The Duilio ship shot down two aerial drones as part of the European Union's Operation Aspides. This was announced by the Ministry of Defense. Duilio acted in principle in self-defense. About ten days ago, when Aspides was not yet the operational base, it foiled another Houthi attack by shooting down a drone. For this action, the deputy director of the Ansar Allah Media Authority, Nasr al-Din Amer, threatened Italy to “protect Israeli and American ships”. “We did not decide to target Italian ships, but the fact that this stopped our operations is unacceptable,” he said a few days ago.
Houthis: “Italy and other countries do not want to calm the situation”
“Italy and the other countries of the pro-Israeli coalition are demonstrating that they do not want to calm the situation or contain the scale of the conflict. Instead, they want to extend it to the entire Red Sea. But the Yemeni forces will determine the theater of operations,” the Houthi official added today. “These operations – said Mahamed – always aim for two objectives: to prevent Israeli ships from heading towards occupied Palestine and to strike American ships and British, due to American and British support for Israel in the attack on Gaza.
(update)
(ANSA/US/NAVY file photo)
Read also:
