Rebel drone attacks on Saudi airports

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DUBAI, Aug 5, (Agencies): Yemeni Houthi forces launched drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid airbase and Abha and Najran airports, the Houthis’ military spokesman said on Monday. A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen said later that Houthi drones had been intercepted and downed heading in the direction of civilian airports.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saria said the attack on Abha airport “hit its targets” and air traffic was disrupted at both Abha and Najran. All three locations are in southwest Saudi, near the border with Yemen. The Houthis, who control the Yemeni capital Sanaa, have in the past few months stepped up their attacks against targets in Saudi Arabia.

In response, the coalition has struck military sites belonging to the group, especially around Sanaa. On Thursday the Houthis said they launched missile and drone attacks on a military parade in the southern port city of Aden, the seat of Yemen’s internationally recognised government and a stronghold of the coalition, killing dozens.

The escalation in violence threatens a UN-sponsored deal for a ceasefire and troop withdrawal from the fl ashpoint coastal city of Hodeidah, which became the focus of the war last year when the coalition tried to seize its port, the Houthis’ main supply line and a lifeline for millions of Yemenis. Saudi’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Saudi air forces shot down pilotless aircraft unleashed by the Iranbacked terrorist Houthi militia toward the Kingdom civil airports early on Monday.

Coordination
Official spokesperson of the coalition for supporting legitimacy in Yemen, Colonel Turki Al-Maliki, said in a statement broadcast by the official Saudi Press Agency that the Houthi militia started full coordination with the terrorist organization, the so-called Islamic State “DAESH”. He indicated that the illicit coordination with the terrorist group had begun after a recent attack on a government military barracks in southern city of Aden.

The Houthi terrorists have been targeting airports, passengers including citizens and residents of the Kingdom, in violation of international humanitarian law. Such attacks are tantamount to war crimes, Col Al-Maliki said. He has said that the coalition joint command will continue carrying out deterrent action against the terrorist militia, demolishing their capacities with utter power.

But he has affirmed that the firm action against them will be in line with international humanitarian law and rules. Attacks on Yemeni forces that form a core component of the Saudiled military coalition in the south of the country risk further destabilising Aden, seat of the government, and complicating United Nations peace efforts.

The Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which the alliance has been battling for more than four years, launched a missile attack on United Arab Emirates-backed Security Belt forces in the southern port city, a coalition stronghold, that killed 36 soldiers on Thursday. The strike on a military parade was the worst violence to hit Aden since southern separatists forces, including Security Belt units, clashed with the Saudi-backed government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi in 2017 in a power struggle.

Analysts say the Houthis may be testing any weaknesses in the coalition following the UAE military drawdown in the south and western coast announced in June, which appears to have also emboldened Islamist militant groups in Yemen who carried out separate deadly attacks on southern forces last week.

The Houthis have stepped up missile and drone attacks on Saudi cities, but this is the first serious attack by the group on Aden since it was captured by the coalition in 2015. The Western-backed, Sunni Muslim alliance intervened in Yemen in 2015 against the Houthis after they ousted Hadi’s government from power in the capital Sanaa in late 2014. The Houthis, who hold most urban centres including Sanaa and the main port of Hodeidah, have no traction in the south, where the UAE has armed and trained some 90,000 Yemeni troops drawn from southern separatists and coastal plains fighters.

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