Saudi continues to remain prime target of Houthi rebels; fires ballistic missile

Riyadh, June 15: Kingdom continues to remain as the prime target of Houthi rebels! Notably, Saudi Arabia on Thursday intercepted a ballistic missile fired from the rebel-held territory of Yemen. The incident comes within a week after Saudi-led military coalition pushed a major offensive to capture a strategic Hodeida port in Yemen.

 

The Saudi air defenses intercepted a ballistic missile fired by Houthi rebels targeting the Khamis Mushait in the kingdom's southern province. Fortunately, there was no casualty reported. Immediately after the incident, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed in a statement that the missile hit a Saudi airbase.

This is the ninth incident when Houthi rebels fired ballistic missiles targeting Saudi Arabia. On Sunday, at least three civilians were killed after the Houthi rebels fired a ballistic missile targeting the Jazan province in southwestern Saudi Arabia.

In April this year, Saudi Arabia intercepted a ballistic missile fired by Houthi rebels that targeted the southern Saudi province of Najran. A month prior to that, Saudi intercepted seven short-range ballistic missiles fired by Houthi rebels that targeted residential suburbs in Riyadh. In this deadly attack, one Egyptian citizen was killed while two others were injured.

Yemen has been embroiled in a violent conflict between the government headed by President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Yemeni forces. Since 2015, the Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes against the Yemeni forces at Hadi’s request.

An estimated 6,00,000 civilians have been killed or wounded since the beginning of the Saudi-led campaign. Yemen is also suffering from the disastrous outbreak of cholera due to which 2180 civilians are killed while suspect cases have reached to 8,72,415 in the time period of 6 months.