Houthi chief threatens to attack Saudi Arabia, UAE in case of escalation in Yemen's Hodeidah

Yemen's Houthi rebel chief Abdulmalik al-Houthi said on Monday that his group's attack would reach as far as the capital cities of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in case of any military escalation in Hodeidah.

"We warn of any military escalation in Hodeidah. The response will extend to the depth of the countries' capital cities involved in the escalation," al-Houthi warned in his speech aired through television and radio stations.

He referred to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are leading the military coalition against the Yemeni rebels.

The speech was made to mark four years of the military coalition's intervention in Yemen's conflict, which began on March 26, 2015.

"We are coming into the fifth year of resisting the foreign military aggression with a much more developed long-range ballistic missile arsenal," he said.

"Enemy seeks to fail the Sweden Agreement to occupy our land ... but we will fight until the end," the Houthi leader added.

Al-Houthi called on his supporters to mass on Tuesday at the largest square in the capital Sanaa to celebrate their steadfastness over the past four years of war.

The peace deal, which was reached in Stockholm in December last year, was initially seen as a hope to end Yemen's war, but it has since stalled over what the United Nations calls "misinterpretation" of the deal's terms.

The deal focused on the contested Hodeidah port city and general exchange of prisoners to rebuild trust between the government and Houthi rebels as the first step toward a comprehensive political settlement.

Many Yemeni political experts criticized the deal, saying it lacks vital strategy to be implemented.

The United Nations has since proposed several practical mechanisms through its cease-fire monitor team in Hodeidah to implement the deal, but all efforts have so far proved to be failures.