"US primarily responsible for senior Ansarullah official's murder"

Leader of Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah movement has held the United States chiefly responsible for the recent assassination of the country's head of the Supreme Political Council, Saleh al-Samaad, in the western coastal province of Hudaydah.

Hawzah News Agency (Sana'a, Yemen) - Addressing his supporters via a televised speech from the Yemeni capital Sana'a, Abdul-Malik Badreddin stated that Americans played the leading role in Samaad's murder, and their fighter jets closely monitored the entire phases of the operation.

He added that aggressors were killing innocent Yemeni women and children on a daily basis, and their crimes had now become an indispensable part of life in the crisis-hit Arab country.

"Having received the green light from Washington, aggressors are carrying out their appalling crimes against Yemenis as part of their military of tactics," the Ansarullah chief pointed out.

He further noted that Saudi Arabia and its allies were committing acts of "genocide" in Yemen by targeting civilians and residential neighborhoods.

Houthi also censured the Saudi-led coalition over assassination of Samaad, emphasizing that the move was in contravention of international law.

"Samaad never took advantage of his position. His primary goal was to serve the interests of the entire Yemeni nation. Officials from the Ansarullah movement will do their utmost to follow in his suit," Houthi commented.

"Since the beginning of the military onslaught against Yemen, the related developments have pointed to the heroic resistance and steadfastness of the Yemeni nation against the Saudi-led aggression. Aggressors proved their baseness by dispatching warplanes to bombarded Samaad's funeral," he said.

Houthi added that Samaad's murder boosted public resilience in the face of aggressors, and consolidated their determination for self-sacrifice.

"Aggressors will obtain adverse results out of the assassination. They had planned Samaad's murder in the hope of sowing the seeds of discord and division among Yemenis, and breaking their will. Nevertheless, his martyrdom bolstered their morale and added to their rage against Saudi Arabia and its allies," the Ansarullah leader underlined.

Houthi concluded that aggressors were weighing plans in order to bring more mercenaries into Yemen.

Arabic-language al-Masirah television network quoted Yemen's Air Force and Air Defense commander Major General Ibrahim al-Shami as saying on Friday that Americans planned and then carried out Sammad’s execution.

He noted that a US MQ-9 Reaper drone fired a missile into his residence in the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah, located 150 kilometers southwest of Sana'a, on April 19.

The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights announced in a statement on March 25 that the Saudi-led war had left 600,000 civilians dead and injured since March 2015.

The United Nations (UN) says a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in need of food aid, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger.

A high-ranking UN aid official recently warned against the "catastrophic" living conditions in Yemen, stating that there was a growing risk of famine and cholera there.

"After three years of conflict, conditions in Yemen are catastrophic," John Ging, UN director of aid operations, told the UN Security Council on February 27.