Yemen: December 14 marks the tenth anniversary of one of Yemen’s most significant missile operations, when the Yemeni Rocketry Force carried out a ballistic strike using a Tochka missile against the operations command center of the US-Saudi aggression coalition in the Sha‘b al-Jin area of Bab al-Mandeb, southwestern Yemen.

The operation, regarded as the second most successful missile strike at the time, followed the earlier Sahn al-Han strike in Safer, Marib. Both operations inflicted heavy human and material losses on coalition forces and relied on the same Tochka ballistic missile, underscoring a qualitative shift in Yemen’s deterrent capabilities.

According to Yemeni sources and subsequent admissions by coalition-aligned media, the Bab al-Mandeb strike destroyed multiple military assets, including Apache helicopters, armored vehicles, and equipment belonging to coalition forces and their mercenaries. 

The attack resulted in the killing of senior Saudi and Emirati officers, a development that dealt a severe psychological and operational blow to the invading forces.

International media outlets gave the operation wide coverage. Reuters described it as among the deadliest attacks faced by invading forces since the start of the war on Yemen, while Agence France-Presse reported the deaths of high-ranking Saudi and Emirati officers during coalition operations. 

US network CNN and Britain’s BBC also confirmed coalition announcements regarding officer casualties and the destruction of military vehicles at the Bab al-Mandeb front.

Russian news agencies characterized the strike as a “qualitative operation,” citing coalition sources who acknowledged that the targeted site was a key command location overseeing operations between the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Dhubab area in Taiz governorate.

Lebanese and regional media described the strike as a major military blow that exposed the vulnerability of the aggression coalition and challenged assumptions about the limits of Yemen’s missile capabilities.

The Bab al-Mandeb Tochka strike marked a turning point in Yemen’s defensive strategy, signaling that coalition command centers were within range and that escalation would be met with calibrated deterrence.

In the years that followed, Yemeni military capabilities continued to develop, extending the reach of response operations deeper into coalition territory and, later, toward targets linked to the Israeli enemy and the Zionist entity in occupied Palestine—within a framework Yemen describes as legitimate retaliation as long as aggression persists against the peoples of the region.

The anniversary of the Bab al-Mandeb Tochka missile operation comes amid continued regional escalation driven by US-led policies and the ongoing aggression against the peoples of the region, particularly the Palestinian people in Gaza. 

For Yemen, the 2015 strike represented a decisive moment in shifting from a position of defense under siege to establishing a deterrence equation against invading forces and their local tools.