Yemen’s Houthi rebels fire ballistic missile at Saudi military base

SANAA, JAN 14 — Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired a ballistic missile toward a Saudi Arabian military base in the kingdom’s southern border region of Najran on Monday, the Shiite rebels said in a statement.
“The Badr-1-P ballistic missile targeted a gathering of Saudi troops in the military base in Bir Askar area,” according to the statement released by the rebel-controlled Saba news agency.
The statement said the missiles hit the target accurately. There was no comment yet from Saudi government.
The attack on Saudi Arabia was the second in two days after Sunday’s drone attack hit a Saudi military base in the Saudi border city of Jizan, according to the rebel statement.
On Friday, the Saudi-led Arab coalition said it destroyed a control center used to direct drones of the Houthi militia, the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television reported without providing further details.
The Friday’s coalition strike came a day after the rebels launched a deadly drone attack on the Yemeni government military parade in the southern province of Lahj that killed six senior military leaders, including the military intelligence chief Mohammed Tammah.
On Nov. 18, the rebels announced halt of ballistic missile and drone attacks against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as a “show of good faith” to support peace efforts by the United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths.
A fragile cease-fire deal in the lifeline Hodeidah port city was hardly reached between the Yemeni rival parties in the UN-brokered peace negotiations in Stockholm, Sweden, last month.
Griffiths told the Security Council last week that his team will continue to cement the truce in Hodeidah and will move forward to achieve a comprehensive peace agreement.
Saudi Arabia is leading an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after the Houthi rebels forced him into exile and seized much of the country’s north, including the capital Sanaa.
The four-year-long war has killed more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, displaced three million others and pushed the country to the brink of famine. – XINHUA