Saudi forces intercept Houthi missile fired toward Najran

JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia’s air defense forces on Friday intercepted a missile fired by Houthi militias, days after their second-in-command was killed in an air raid by Riyadh and its allies.

The missile, the latest in a series of similar attacks, was heading toward Najran, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Col. Turki Al-Maliki, the coalition’s spokesman, said that at 12:46 p.m., the Royal Saudi Air Defense detected a ballistic missile launch from Sadah, Yemen, aimed at Saudi Arabia.

Al-Maliki reported that the ballistic missile was launched deliberately by the Iranian Houthi militia to target densely populated civilian areas, where the missile was intercepted and destroyed by the forces. The missile’s fragments scattered over residential areas as a result, but no injuries or damages were reported.

He added: “This hostile act carried out by the Iranian Houthi militia proves that the Iranian regime is still providing the terrorist Houthi armed militia with qualitative capabilities, in flagrant defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 2216 and 2231, with the main objective of threatening Saudi Arabian, regional and international security.”

Last Friday, Saudi air defense forces managed to intercept a ballistic missile fired by Houthi militias in the direction of Saudi Arabia’s border province of Jazan.

Saudi Arabia launched a military coalition in 2015 to battle the Houthi militias in its southern neighbor and restore the internationally recognized Yemeni government to power.

The Houthis control Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, as well as much of Yemen’s north and the key Hodeida port on the country’s western coastline.

Riyadh on Wednesday confirmed it was behind an air strike on the Yemeni capital that killed Saleh Al-Sammad, president of the Houthi’s Supreme Political Council, on April 19. A public funeral for Al-Sammad will be held by the Houthis in Sanaa on Saturday.