Saudi coalition intercepts Houthi drones, missiles targeting Riyadh

RIYADH: The Saudi-led coalition battling Yemen's Houthis said on Saturday it had intercepted drones and ballistic missiles, as the Iran-backed group launched fresh attacks, including on Riyadh, despite international condemnation.

The United Nations Security Council earlier condemned escalating attacks on Saudi Arabia by Houthi fighters, noting that the strikes have wounded "civilians, including women and children."

The Houthis have imposed a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, hitting its tankers, seizing swathes of Yemen's Red Sea coast vital for oil exports and causing energy prices to jump, while also raining missiles on the kingdom.

A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition said on Saturday its air defences "intercepted and destroyed two drones launched by Houthi towards the Riyadh area."

Saudi air defences also intercepted and destroyed two Houthi-launched ballistic missiles targeting Khamis Mushait, a city in the country's southwest that is home to an air base, the spokesman said.

Hezam Al-Assad, a member of the Houthi Political Bureau, said on Saturday that "Despite the operation's strength, scope, and impact, our armed forces view it as merely a small-scale rehearsal for a full-scale escalation."

In July, renewed hostilities shattered a years-long truce and embroiled Yemen in the wider Middle East war.

A ground campaign being waged by Houthi forces against Yemeni forces is threatening a humanitarian crisis, with 138,000 people displaced across Yemen since August, 70,000 children among them, according to the United Nations.

"The members of the Security Council condemned, in the strongest terms, continued Houthi attacks against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including attacks impacting civilian and energy infrastructure, which have resulted in the injury of civilians, including women and children," the rotating president of the council, French UN envoy Jerome Bonnafont, said on Friday.--AFP