Yemen Drones Target Saudi Airport Again

TEHRAN (defapress)- Yemen’s armed forces carried out retaliatory drone attacks on an airport in Southwestern Saudi Arabia for the second time in a week.

News ID: 77762

Date: 14 June 2019 - 14:16

Yemeni Qasif-2K drones targeted the airport in the Saudi province of Asir in the early hours of Friday morning, two days after a cruise missile attack by army troopers and allied fighters from Popular Committees at the strategic Saudi facility, Al-Masirah television network reported.

There have been no immediate reports of possible casualties or the extent of damage caused as a result of the attack.

A Saudi-led coalition spokesman said in a statement released by the Saudi Press Agency that the country's air missile defense systems had intercepted five Yemeni drones over the Saudi airport on Friday morning.

On Wednesday, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, the spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces, stated that US-built surface-to-air missile systems stationed at Abha airport could not intercept the cruise missile, which he said had hit the designated target with great precision.

He noted that the missile hit the observation tower in the airport, which is about 200 kilometers North of the border with Yemen and serves domestic and regional routes, causing significant disruption to air travel.

Saree pointed out that the missile attack on Abha airport was part of retaliatory measures by Yemeni soldiers and their allies in the face of the Saudi-led coalition’s crimes against Yemeni people.

Saudi Arabia also confirmed the Wednesday attack, with Coalition Spokesman Turki al-Maliki saying in a statement that a Yemeni missile had hit the airport’s arrivals hall, injuring 26 people and causing material damage.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the Ansarullah movement.

Despite Riyadh's claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures. Weddings, funerals, schools and hospitals, as well as water and electricity plants, have been targeted, killing and wounding hundreds of thousands.

According to a December 2018 report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has claimed the lives of over 60,000 Yemenis since January 2016.

Save the Children, a charity, has reported that more than 84,700 children under the age of five may have starved to death in Yemen since the Saudi regime and a coalition of its allies launched the brutal war on the already-impoverished nation.

France, the United States, the Uinted Kingdom and some other Western countries have faced criticisms over arms sales to the Saudi Arabia and the UAE, whose aggression against Yemen has affected 28 million people and caused what the United Nations calls “one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world". According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years.

A UN panel has compiled a detailed report of civilian casualties caused by the Saudi military and its allies during their war against Yemen, saying the Riyadh-led coalition has used precision-guided munitions in its raids on civilian targets.

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