Houthi rebels claimed to have attacked a military target in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh a day after the Yemeni rebels fired ballistic missiles at an airport.
The Iran-backed Houthis said the drone strikes occurred Monday afternoon, one day after the same militia conducted a missile attack against King Abdullah bin Abulaziz Airport in the Saudi port city of Jazan.
Yemeni Brig. Gen. Yahya Sharee said Houthi forces and allied fighters carried out the strikes to weaken Saudi military strongholds. Saree said dozens were killed and injured.
Saudi Arabia has denied there was an attack by the rebels. A spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition said the alliance shot down a drone in Yemeni airspace that was heading for Saudi Arabia.
Saudi officials dismissed the claim of Sunday’s airport attack, which said hangars of Saudi warplanes and Apache attack helicopters were targeted. The coalition said it shot down six ballistic missiles fired by Houthi rebels.
“Its hostile and terrorist acts have been rated as war crimes according to the humanitarian international law, confirming that the joint forces of the coalition continue to take strict and deterrent measures to neutralize and destroy these capabilities,” Saudi Col. Turki Al-Maliki said.
On August 25, Yemeni forces fired 10 short-range ballistic missiles at military sites in the Jizan International Airport in their “biggest” attack with such missiles on targets inside Saudi Arabia. Yemen’s al-Masirah TV reported that the missiles targeted the hangars of Saudi warplanes and Apache choppers as well as some military sites in the area.
On the same day, Ansar Allah launched a new “ballistic missile,” dubbed Nakal, at a gathering of the Saudi military in the Kingdom’s province of Najran. Brig. Gen. Yahya Sari, a spokesman for Ansar Allah-led forces, said that the new missile stuck its target, killing and injuring “dozens” of coalition personnel.
On August 26, Ansar Allah, for the first time, used a squadron of its new Sammad-3 to strike an “important military target” in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. Brig. Gen. Sari said that the drones struck the designated target with great precision emphasizing that the strikes were the answer to the Saudi aggression against Yemen.
Later, a Qassem medium-range ballistic missile hit positions of Saudi-backed forces in the Saqam area of Narjan Province.
See Details: Yemen’s Houthi rebels carried out Suicide Drones Strike at Saudi Airbase
On August 27, Qasef-2K loitering munitions targeted Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid Air Base in the province of Asir.
All these developments came amid continued border clashes between Ansar Allah fighters and Saudi-led forces. Ansar Allah regularly releases videos showing large equipment losses of coalition-backed troops in the area.
Taking into account a recent rift between Saudi-backed and UAE-backed forces in southern Yemen, it appears that the coalition is steadily losing more and more ground in the war-torn country and , that the war is moving to southern Saudi Arabia.
