The Saudi-led Arab coalition targeted Houthi military camps in Sanaa on Saturday, Al-Arabiya TV reported on Saturday.

Eyewitnesses from the area said that the coalition air force targeted the Al-Dailami air base with three raids, two raids on Beit Atran and another camp in a different location.

This comes hours after the Houthis announced the fall of a coalition aircraft in the outskirts of Sanaa, according to media published by the Houthis.

The US ambassador to Yemen blamed the Iran-aligned Houthi movement on Thursday for the hold-up to a UN-led peace deal in the main port of Hodeidah and said Houthi weapons pose a threat to other countries in the region.

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE: The White House said on Friday that all Daesh held territory in Syria has been”100 percent” eliminated.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters aboard Air Force One Friday that President Donald Trump was briefed about the development by acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.
Trump has been teasing the victory for days.
Sanders showed reporters a map of Iraq and Syria that showed that the terror group no longer controlled any territory in the region.

More to follow

Gaza City: Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in renewed clashes along the Gaza border Friday, the health ministry in the enclave said.
The clashes took place a week before the first anniversary of the weekly protests, when organisers have pledged larger than usual demonstrations.
Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra told AFP the two men, aged 18 and 29, were shot in separate incidents along the fractious border.
The teenager was shot in the head east of Gaza City, while the older man was hit in the chest near the Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, Qudra told AFP.
He did not name them but said at least 55 other people were shot.
The Israeli army did not comment on the deaths but said “approximately 9,500 rioters and demonstrators” gathered in various locations, “hurling explosive devices, hard objects and rocks” at troops.
Troops were “firing in accordance with standard operating procedures,” a spokeswoman said.
At least 257 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza since protests began on March 30 2018.
Most have been killed during protests, though others have died in airstrikes and by tank fire.
Two Israeli soldiers have been killed.
The often violent protests are demanding Palestinian refugees and their descendants be allowed to return to former homes now inside Israel.
Israeli officials say that amounts to calling for the Jewish state’s destruction, and accuse Hamas of orchestrating the protests.

BEIRUT: US sanctions on Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah are working, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday on a visit to Beirut, calling on Lebanon to stand up to the Shi’ite group which he accused of “criminality, terror and threats”.

Lebanese politicians who met Pompeo, including President Michel Aoun, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil – all political allies of Hezbollah – said they had told him the group was part and parcel of Lebanese politics.

Pompeo, touring the Middle East to drum up support for Washington’s harder line against Iran, cited a speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah this month asking the group’s supporters for funds as evidence US pressure was working.

“Our pressure on Iran is simple. It’s aimed at cutting off the funding for terrorists and it’s working,” he said standing alongside Bassil after their meeting. “We believe that our work is already constraining Hezbollah’s activities.”

Pompeo said Iran gave Hezbollah as much as $700 million a year.

The heavily armed Hezbollah has a large militia that has taken part in Syria’s civil war alongside President Bashar Al-Assad’s government, but it also has elected members of parliament and positions in the national unity government.

The group’s influence over Lebanese state institutions has expanded in the last year. Together with allies that view its arsenal as an asset to Lebanon, it won more than 70 of parliament’s 128 seats in an election last year.

The group has taken three of the 30 portfolios in the government formed by the Western-backed Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri in January, including the health ministry – the first time it has held a ministry with a significant budget.

Pompeo said he shared concerns about “external and internal pressures on the government, including coming from some of its own members, which do not serve an independent thriving Lebanon”.

The United States would continue to use “all peaceful means” to choke off financing that “feeds Iran and Hezbollah terror operations”, he said, pointing to “smuggling, criminal networks and the missue of government positions”.

“Lebanon faces a choice: bravely move forward as an independent and proud nation, or allow the dark ambitions of Iran and Hezbollah to dictate your future,” he said.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun earlier told Pompeo that Hezbollah was a Lebanese party with popular support, the Lebanese presidency said.

“Preserving national unity and civil peace is a priority for us,” Aoun told Pompeo, the presidency said on its Twitter feed.

Speaker Berri said earlier in a statement that he had told Pompeo that Hezbollah’s “resistance” against Israel was a result of continuing Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory.

Israel, the closest US ally in the Middle East, regards Iran as its biggest threat and Hezbollah as the main danger on its borders.

PARIS: France’s foreign ministry said Friday that it had summoned the Israeli government’s representative in Paris over what it called an “intrusion” by Israeli forces at its cultural center in Jerusalem.
In a rare move, police entered the building Thursday to cancel an event with a women’s group which Israel claims is sponsored or financed by the Palestinian Authority.
A diplomatic source said France’s consul general had immediately protested the police’s entry to the center in east Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed in a move not recognized by the international community.
“Such actions are a serious and unacceptable infringement to the functioning of our cultural network in Jerusalem,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
It said the Israeli charge d’affaires had been called to meet with French officials for “necessary clarifications.”
“France intends to maintain and develop its deep and longstanding relations with Palestinian civil society,” it added.
The French consulate could not confirm Thursday if the women’s association was indeed financed by the Palestinian Authority — Israel considers all PA activities in Jerusalem illegal.
But Palestinians who were to participate in the event said the allegation was false.
“It was an event related to Mother’s Day” and to sell crafts made by women from Jerusalem, said one of the women who was to participate, declining to give her name.
Similar events occur on a near-monthly basis, she said.