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The Yemeni military was widely believed to possess around 300 Scud missiles, most of which fell into the hands of the rebels.
World
22 dead as Saudi-led airstrikes hit Yemen's army headquarters
June
6, 2015: Yemeni children chant slogans and wave Yemeni flags which have
the Arabic, "Yemen one," written on them, during a protest against
Saudi-led airstrikes, in Sanaa, Yemen. (AP)
The officials said the dead were mostly soldiers and the airstrikes damaged several nearby homes and shook the entire city. Residents said the armed forces’ headquarters was struck by at least three airstrikes.
The U.S.-backed coalition began launching airstrikes on March 26 against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and their allies in the military and security forces. Houthi rebels seized Sanaa in September and later captured much of Yemen’s north before marching south.
Their advance on the south forced internationally recognized President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee the southern port city of Aden to Saudi Arabia. He had earlier fled Sanaa to Aden.
Sunday’s airstrikes come one day after the Houthis fired a Scud missile into Saudi Arabia, a dramatic escalation of the conflict. The attack indicated that despite more than two months of airstrikes the rebels still pose a threat to cities inside Saudi Arabia.
The official Saudi Press Agency said two missiles launched from a Patriot missile battery shot down the Scud before dawn near the southwestern city of Khamis Mushait. The agency did not report any casualties in the attack, the first use of a Cold War-era Scud by the rebels since the airstrikes began.
Yemen's state news agency SABA, now controlled by the Houthis, acknowledged that the rebels fired the Scud. Khamis Mushait is home to the King Khalid Air Base, the largest such facility in that part of the country.
The Yemeni military was widely believed to possess around 300 Scud missiles, most of which fell into the hands of the rebels. In April, the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asiri, implied that the airstrikes had seriously degraded the Scud arsenal.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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