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Saudis claim to intercept 7 houthi missiles fired at multiple cities
AL MUKALLA, Yemen — Saudi Arabia said its air defenses destroyed seven ballistic missiles late Sunday, fired from neighboring Yemen and targeting at least four Saudi cities including the capital, Riyadh.
The Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news website quoted Col. Turki al-Maliki, a military spokesman, as saying three of the missiles were directed at Riyadh and the others were fired toward the southwest cities of Khamis Mushait, Najran and Jazan near the Yemen border. Al-Arabiya said they were “launched indiscriminately to target civilian areas and population.”
The official Saudi Press Agency said all the missiles were destroyed.
The missile attack came as the architect of the bombing campaign, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was in the midst of a friendship visit to the United States, which has aided the Saudi military’s intervention in Yemen.
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An earlier report on Al-Arabiya had said Patriot missile batteries operated by the Saudi air force in Riyadh had intercepted at least one incoming missile and that witnesses had reported “loud explosions and bright flashes in the sky.”
It was not immediately clear whether any missile debris caused casualties or damage on the ground. Remains of a Houthi-fired missile in November barely missed a passenger terminal at Riyadh’s international airport.
Amateur videos uploaded to YouTube appeared to show that at least one of the Patriot missiles fired Sunday failed to hit its intended target, instead doing a U-turn and crashing with a huge flash on the ground.
The Houthis, who are supported by Saudi Arabia’s regional rival Iran, have fired missiles into Saudi Arabia several times.
The Saudis and the Americans have accused Iran of violating a U.N. arms embargo by providing military weapons and supplies to the Houthis, including missiles. Iran has denied the accusation but has defended the missile launchings, calling them a justified response to devastating Saudi-led aerial attacks.
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In their own account of the attack, the Houthis said they had fired at least three ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia.
The Houthi account, carried by the Saba news agency in Yemen, also quoted the group’s leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, as saying in a speech that he would remain defiant to “Saudi-American aggression.”
The Saudi intervention in Yemen, which began on March 25, 2015, has helped cause what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, exacerbated by strict Saudi controls on shipping into the country.
A majority of the Yemen population is in urgent need of food. The country has been upended by severe hunger and threats of famine, forced displacement and preventable diseases including cholera and diphtheria.
Geert Cappelaere, the UNICEF director for the Middle East and North Africa, who just completed a weeklong visit to Yemen, said Sunday that the country had one of the world’s highest number of acutely malnourished children.
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“It is fair to say today that every single girl and boy in Yemen is facing acute humanitarian needs,” he said. “Three years of war, decades of chronic underdevelopment have done something for the children of Yemen — but unfortunately nothing good.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
SAEED AL-BATATI and RICK GLADSTONE © 2018 The New York Times
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