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 from its Iran-backed foes.
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. Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition that has supported Yemen’s internationally recognised government against the Houthis for more than a decade. 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.
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. 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”. 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.
