Brig. Gen. Ahmed bin Hasan Asiri, consultant at the minister of defense's office and spokesman of the Coalition Forces, stressed that Operation Determination Strom came upon a request by Yemeni President Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi which was presented to the Arab countries as a response to the request of the Yemeni people and government for supporting the legitimacy and protecting the Yemeni legitimacy and citizens against the practices of the Huthi militias and the ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh. During the daily press briefing held today at Riyadh Air Base, Brig. Asiri said that the political process was launched to achieve specific military objectives of this campaign which are protection of the Yemeni legitimacy and deterring the Huthi operations from continuing operations threatening the Yemeni citizens and destroying its military capabilities which they seized from the Yemeni army and which were accumulated during the past years as well as preventing the Huthi militias from threatening the kingdom and neighboring countries. He added that Determination Storm focused on specific objectives, including controlling the airspace in Yemen and preventing the Houthi militias and their supporters from using the air forces or any other air means against the coalition operations, destroying anti-air defense operations controlled by the Huthi militias and destroying the command and control centers from which operations are run, stressing that the coalition forces controlled the airspace in the first fifteen minutes of the operation. Brig Asiri explained that the operations continued against axes of ballistic missiles, logistics, supply, movements, ammunition stores, maintenance and manufacturing primitive workshops that they had, the sea embargo and prevention of ground operations. He stressed preventing the Huthi militias from entering and controlling the city of Aden as the operations were carried out with high precision and careful planning. He said that the operations were successful and without injuries with respect to air operations with the exception of one plane that faced a technical glitch that was announced at the time of the accident. Brig Asiri added that the operations were punctual and hit their targets in terms of the volume of sorties carried out, pointing out that during the past two days, coalition forces carried out 2,300 sorties, and today, we confirm reaching 2415 sorties whose goal was to implement the air campaign in a focused manner and setting the goals that were achieved accurately on the ground, pointing out that the announcement of the command of the alliance today to end the Determination Storm's operations came at the request of the Yemeni president who felt that the main objectives of the Determination Storm have been achieved on the ground and that the legitimacy was protected and that the Yemeni citizens are no longer in jeopardy as they were in the early days. He said that the Huthi militias lost a large part of its potential and we can assure that it will not be a reason for threatening neighboring countries or Yemeni citizens, indicating that the Yemeni government will take all procedures for the continuation of restoring hope to the Yemeni citizens through Operation Hope Restore which will start at the beginning of tomorrow. He added that operations regarding Operation Hope Restore will begin to restore hope to the Yemeni people, emphasize that the Yemeni government will work to support their presence on the ground of Yemen and continue towards building a secure and stable Yemen. Regarding future operations in the military part, the command of the coalition through Operation Hope Restore will prevent the Huthi militias from moving and carrying out any operations inside Yemen. He added, 'We are targeting operational moves of the Huthi militias to prevent them from harming citizens or actually changing the reality on the ground, noting that these operations will continue to protect the civilian citizens from the oppression of the Huthi militias if these militias tried to return to the practices that they were exercising prior to the beginning of Operation Determination Storm. On top of these tasks are support for relief, evacuation, humanitarian work in Yemen, facilitating their potential operations through continued humanitarian and relief work and evacuations that we have already announced. We will emphasize their duties today in continuing to manage and coordinate the work of evacuation, relief and humanitarian operations. Brig Asiri confirmed that the operations will continue with respect to humanitarian and relief work and evacuation when the leadership of the coalition feels that there is a need for military action to achieve the humanitarian and relief work and evacuation. Brigadier Asiri explained that all operations that had been carried out today were in support for the work of the People's Committees and resistance in Saada, Aden, Sana'a and Hodeidah, stressing that the continuation of the work in achieving the goals and management on the part of the command of the coalition to protect civilians in the city of Aden and target any operational attempts of the Huthi militias. He stressed the continuation of work on the ground level to protect the southern borders of the kingdom by the Saudi land forces and the Saudi border guards in the protection, carrying out their duties and responding to any attempts to influence the safety and security of the borders in addition to implementing the sea embargo on the Yemeni territorial waters and ports by the coalition command through visiting and inspecting ships to make sure that they are consistent with UN resolution 2216, which prevents arming the Huthi militias or any country or party from arming the ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the groups loyal to him. The coalition spokesman noted that Operation Determination Storm culminated in success highlighting unity of all countries participating in the coalition and the precision of planning and coordination and courageous fighters of the air, sea and ground forces and border guards, indicating that the final warehouse that could be controlled by the Huthis has been destroyed, and pointing out that the work will continue when it is proved to the command of the coalition that these militias are more or less trying to target its operations through the operation to restore hope to Yemen. He said that the evacuation and humanitarian action cell will continue to carry out their duties to achieve the third goal of Hope Restore operations through communication on the numbers and site, pointing out that everyone is trying to bring hope to the Yemeni citizens, restore security and stability to Yemen and achieve the goals of Operation Hope Restore. Then, al-Asiri answered reporters' questions and explained that the command of the coalition began its operations upon a formal request from the Yemeni government and ended them at the request of the Yemeni government which saw that the targets set for the operations have been achieved and to allow for the Yemeni government to begin restoring hope to the Yemenis. Brigadier Asiri that the Security Council resolution is a strong message from the international community that the situation in Yemen is not a field for media speculations, and that Determination Storm is application of this resolution and support for the legitimacy of the Yemeni government, stressing that the Kingdom is able to protect itself and will not be dragged by media rhetoric and provocations adding that that the goal of Determination Storm is the restoration of security and stability to Yemen and the region. The spokesman of the coalition forces indicated that the role of the National Guard is a major role in the security and stability of the kingdom and has a supporting role for the armed forces and is taking part in the defense of the northern borders and its deployment now is normal according to the concept of operations in the use of military forces in the kingdom, pointing out that the National Guard is participating with the Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior in playing the required roles to do the duty of defending the southern border of the kingdom. Brigadier Asiri stressed that the end of Determination Storm and the start of the of Hope Restore are a combination of political and diplomatic action and military action, pointing out that the command of the coalition is concerned with military action, which is to prevent the Huthi militias from carrying out any military operations.
