Houthis claim bomb-laden drone attack on Saudi airbase

Yemen's Houthi rebels claimed a drone attack on Saudi Arabia's King Khalid air-base.
2 min read
25 April, 2021
This was the fifth reported attack aimed at Saudi cities in nearly a week [Getty]

Yemen's Houthi rebels have claimed an attack King Khalid air-base in Saudi Arabia's southwestern city of Khamis Mushait before dawn on Sunday.

The Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV reported an attack on the air-base involving a bomb-laden drone.

Saudi media said that the kingdom’s air defence system intercepted and destroyed a Houthi bomb drone which was aimed at the kingdom's south.

This was the fifth reported attack aimed at Saudi cities in nearly a week.

Cross-border missile and drone attacks by the Iran-aligned Houthis have escalated since February, when the rebels began a major offensive to capture the province of Marib.

Read also: Yemen's Houthi rebels advance on Marib, dozens dead: military sources

The Houthis have also struck Aramco facilities in the past, underscoring the vulnerability of Saudi Arabia's expensive and strategically vital oil infrastructure.

Last November, the rebels hit an Aramco plant in Jeddah with a Quds-2 missile, tearing a hole in an oil tank and triggering an explosion and fire, the company said.

The rebels' latest claim comes a day after at least 70 pro-government and Houthi fighters were killed in fierce fighting for Yemen's strategic northern city of Marib.  

The Houthis have been trying to seize Marib, the capital of an oil-rich region and the government's last significant pocket of territory in the north, since February.

Yemen's civil war pits the Iran-backed rebels against an internationally recognised government backed by a Saudi-led military coalition.

The grinding conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced millions, according to international organisations, sparking what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

A Saudi-led Arab coalition intervened in the Yemeni conflict in March 2015 to support the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

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