RIYADH // Saudi Arabia shot down a Scud missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels and their allies early on Saturday, at a Saudi city that is home to a large airbase, marking a major escalation in the months-long war.
Two missiles launched from a Patriot missile battery shot down the Scud before dawn near the south-western city of Khamis Mushait.
The attack suggests that despite more than two months of airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition, Yemen’s Shiite rebels still have the firepower to threaten cities inside Saudi Arabia.
The attack came a day after the Houthis and their allies launched a ground offensive targeting the Saudi border, prompting the kingdom to fire artillery and launch Apache attack helicopters, according to the official Saudi Press Agency (Spa). It said “scores” of rebel forces were killed, along with four Saudi soldiers, in a battle that lasted from dawn till noon.
Spa did not report any casualties in Saturday’s attack.
The city of Khamis Mushait – near to where the Scud was shot down – is home to the King Khalid Air Base, the largest such facility in that part of the country. Saudis on social media said air-raid sirens went off around the city during the attack.
Yemen’s state news agency Saba, now controlled by the Houthis, said that the rebels fired the Scud. The Houthis are allied with military and security forces loyal to former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Saudi Arabia leads a coalition that is targeting the rebels with airstrikes in support of Yemen’s exiled president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi. Those strikes have targeted arms caches and Scud missile sites around the country.
The coalition responded to Saturday’s attack by targeting and damaging the Scud launcher, which was located south of the Houthi stronghold city of Saada, according to Spa.
Yemeni security officials said coalition planes launched at least six airstrikes on Saturday against a Houthi convoy heading towards Saada. Airstrikes also hit a convoy in Amran province, which Houthi and tribal officials said was transporting livestock.
The Houthis began their advance in September, sweeping down from the north of Yemen and capturing the capital, Sanaa. The rebels held top officials, including Mr Hadi, under house arrest until the Yemeni president fled – first to the southern port city of Aden, and then to Saudi Arabia, as the rebels closed in.
The Saudi-led air campaign and ground fighting have killed more than 1,000 civilians and displaced more than 1 million people since mid-March, the spokesman for the UN secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, told reporters on Wednesday.
The offensive, now in its third month, has so far failed to force the Houthis to withdraw from any territory they hold, or blunt their advance in Southern Yemen.
Security officials said that fierce fighting continued on the ground on Saturday in the areas of Abyan, Haja, and Taez, as coalition planes hit targets in Abyan, Amran and Saada.
In April, the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, Saudi Brigadier General Ahmed Assiri, implied that the Scud missile arsenal in Yemen had been seriously degraded as a result of the airstrikes. “As coalition forces, we confirm that all Houthi capabilities were targeted, foremost their ballistic missiles,” Gen Assiri said at the time.
According to a website allied with Mr Saleh, the Yemeni army possesses 300 Scud missiles, most of them under the control of the Houthis and the former president’s forces. Gen Assiri said in an interview with the Saudi-owned Al Hadath news channel on Saturday that rebels had controlled Yemen’s 300 Scud missiles but that coalition forces have destroyed “most of them.”
Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, a professor of political science at the United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain, said Saturday’s attack was a way for the Houthis and their allies to signal that they still have fight left despite weeks of airstrikes.
“It is an escalation,” Mr Abdullah said. “It is clear now there has not been a knockout and a complete demolition of Houthi firepower.”
The Soviet Union developed Scuds during the Cold War and exported the ballistic missiles to several countries, including Yemen.
Scud strikes in Saudi Arabia have been fatal in the past. On February 25, 1991, an Iraqi-fired Scud evaded a Patriot strike and hit a US base in the city of Dhahran, killing 28 American soldiers.
* Associated Press
