Saudi Arabia says it intercepts Houthi missile launched at Jizan

Saudi Arabia's air defense forces intercepted a missile launched towards the kingdom's southwestern Jizan region by Yemen's armed Houthi movement, state media said on Tuesday.
 
The Houthi-run al-Masirah TV said earlier that a Badr 1 missile had targeted Jizan Economic City, where Saudi Aramco is building a 400,000-barrel-per-day refinery that is expected to become fully operational in 2019.
 
There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
 
The Iran-aligned Houthis, who control Yemen's capital Sanaa, have fired dozens of missiles into the kingdom in recent months, part of a three-year-old conflict widely seen as a proxy battle between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. Most of the missiles have been intercepted by the Saudi military.
 
A military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates intervened in Yemen's war in 2015 to unseat the Houthis and restore the internationally-recognized government in exile.
 
The Western-backed coalition has made no major gains in an offensive launched a month ago to wrest control of Yemen's Hodeidah port from the Houthis, leaving it without the decisive increase in leverage it had sought against the group in U.N.-sponsored peace efforts.

 

 

 

REUTERS