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Saudi Arabia intercepts missile over its capital
Saudi Arabia intercepts ballistic missile over capital
Story highlights
- Houthis, coalition trade attacks
- They have been locked in long fight
(CNN)Yemeni
rebels on Saturday targeted an airport in Saudi Arabia's capital with a
ballistic missile, according to Yemen's Houthi-controlled Defense
Ministry.
But the
missile was intercepted over northeast Riyadh, the Saudi Ministry of
Defense said in a statement carried on government-backed Al-Arabiya
television.
Yemen's
Defense Ministry said the missile attack "shook the Saudi capital" and
the operation was successful. The attack was conducted using a
Yemeni-made, long-range missile called the Burqan 2H, it said.
The Riyadh airport tweeted that it hadn't been affected.
"Travelers
across King Khalid international airport in Riyadh, we assure you that
the movement is going on as normal and usual, and trips going according
to time," the airport said on Twitter.
Airstrikes
later in the day targeted Yemen's capital Sanaa, shaking homes and
breaking windows. This is the first night attack on Sanaa in weeks,
according to CNN's Hakim al-Masmari from Sanaa.
Saudi
Arabia has been leading a coalition of states against the Iran-backed
Houthi rebels, who toppled Yemen's internationally recognized government
in 2015.
The missile launch on
King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh was the first time the heart
of the Saudi capital has been attacked and represents a major
escalation of the ongoing war in the region.
No injuries
The
Saudi-led coalition accused a regional state of providing material
support to the Houthi rebels, saying the firing of a ballistic missile
at Riyadh "threatens the security of the Kingdom and regional and
international security," according to a statement carried by Saudi
state-TV al-Ekbariya.
The
coalition didn't name the country. Saudi Arabia has been fighting a
proxy war in Yemen against Iran, which it accuses of arming the Houthi
rebels. Saudi Arabia has led a military operation in Yemen in support of
the internationally recognized government, which was driven out of the
capital by the Shiite Houthi rebels and is now based in the southern
city of Aden.
"This hostile and
random act by the Houthis proves that one of the terrorism-supporting
countries in the region supports the Houthis," the statement said.
The
missile was fired at 8:07 p.m. local time (1:07 p.m. ET) and targeted
civilian areas in Riyadh, the coalition said. It was intercepted by the
Patriot missile defense system, leading to shrapnel falling over an
uninhabited area east of the airport, the statement said.
There were no injuries, it said.
US President Donald Trump praised the US-made Patriot missile defense system.
"We
make the best military equipment in the world," he said. "... You saw
the missile that went out? And our system knocked the missile out of the
air. That's how good we are. Nobody makes what we make, and now we're
selling it all over the world," Trump told reporters Sunday aboard Air
Force One en route to Japan.
'New phase'
The UN Human Rights Office has documented 13,829 civilian casualties in Yemen, including 5,110 people killed, from the beginning of the fighting into late August.
An
airstrike in Sanaa in August destroyed two residential buildings, which
a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition said was an "unintentional
accident." An airstrike days earlier destroyed a hotel on the outskirts
of Sanaa, leaving dozens dead.
"We
previously warned that capitals of countries attacking Yemen will not be
safe from our ballistic missiles," Houthi spokesman Mohammed AbdulSalam
said. "Today's missile attack comes in response to Saudi killing
innocent Yemeni civilians."
A senior Yemeni air force official told CNN that the claim that Saudi Arabia intercepted the ballistic missile is false.
"The
Saudi regime cannot hide the heavy fires that was seen by thousands of
Saudi nationals in the King Khalid Airport premises as result of the
Yemeni missile," the official said.
"This is not the end. Saudi cities will be a continuous target. We are entering a new phase," he said.
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