Riyadh, other areas: Saudi-led coalition intercepts missiles, drones

RIYADH: The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthis said on Friday that it intercepted missiles and drones over Riyadh and other areas, as the kingdom comes under sustained attack.

Since Yemen’s civil war flared back to life in July, the Houthis have repeatedly struck Saudi targets including Red Sea tankers, oil facilities and Riyadh’s international airport, where 13 people were killed in a single attack last week.

Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition that has supported Yemen’s internationally recognised government against the Houthis for more than a decade.

“We intercepted and destroyed three drones in the southern area and Riyadh… and two cruise missiles over the Red Sea,” coalition spokesman Turki al-Malki wrote on X.

He added that “in the past hours, we intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile over Yanbu”, a city home to the terminus of a major oil pipeline on the Red Sea coast.

The pressure on Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, comes as global energy markets were already rattled by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz at the outset of the wider Middle East war in February.

The Houthi attacks have proliferated since the group launched a lightning offensive in Yemen in September, seizing strategic government-held territory along the Red Sea coast overlooking a major chokepoint for global shipping.

The UN Security Council on Thursday “condemned in the strongest terms continued and escalatory Houthi attacks against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”, as well as their “attacks and threats against commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab” Strait, the southern gateway to the Suez Canal.

The Security Council also denounced the group’s “reckless strikes” on Riyadh’s airport, which the Saudi-led coalition said had been targeted at least 20 times so far this month.

Palace struck

A Saudi foreign ministry official accused Iran on Thursday of continuing “to arm, train and support the Houthi militia in violation of UN security council resolutions”.

“We think that the escalation by the Houthis at this latest stage of the conflict is encouraged by Iran,” added Dr. Rayed Krimly, deputy minister for public diplomacy.

Yemeni government forces have launched a counteroffensive with Saudi air support to retake areas seized by the Houthis, but have so far failed to reverse their gains.

On Thursday, the group launched a deadly missile attack on the presidential palace in the interim seat of the Yemeni government in Aden, killing five people and wounding 16 others, according to the health minister.

Yemeni Prime Minister Shaya al-Zindani denounced the “cowardly” act on X, calling it a “continuation of (the Houthis’) criminal pattern”.

A government minister said on condition of anonymity that Zindani had been present at the time, but “was not harmed in any way”.

The minister said the Houthis hit a command centre for Yemeni government forces at the complex with three missiles, and another for Saudi coalition forces with two missiles.

Media affiliated with the Houthis said they had targeted “the headquarters of military operations, led by Saudi officers, at the Al-Maashiq Palace in Aden, as well as weapons depots belonging to them”.