Spokesman for the Coalition for the Support of Legitimacy in Yemen Colonel Turki Al-Maliki said on Monday that the Coalition hit the Presidential Palace after receiving confirmed information through surveillance and reconnaissance systems on the presence of Houthi commanders at the location.
According to Maliki, the strikes targeted a meeting of "first- and second-rank Houthi leaders" who are on the list of the 40 most wanted terrorists in Yemen.
The spokesperson said at a press conference in Riyadh that if the killing of Saleh al-Sammad, head of the so-called Houthi Supreme Political Council, in an air strike last April 19 was a blow, then Monday’s strike was “painful.”
According to preliminary reports, dozens of militiamen were killed or injured in the airstrike that targeted the presidential office, while the whereabouts of the new head of the Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat, and Chief of Houthi Supreme Revolutionary Committee Mohammed Ali al-Houthi is still unknown.
The presidential office has been under Houthi control since the group forced the internationally recognized President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi into exile in Riyadh.
While Houthis deployed their militias in the streets of Sana’a Monday, they were discreet about the names of rebel leaders hit by the Coalition strikes.
Eyewitnesses said the insurgents threw a tight security dragnet around hospitals that received casualties from Monday’s strike.
