Yemeni reprisal attacks: Drones target Saudi airport' in Asir, flights canceled

The Yemeni army says its military drones have bombarded a Saudi airport in the kingdom’s southwestern province of Asir for the second time in more than a month, forcing the authorities to suspend all flights to and from the regional airport.

Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network, citing an unnamed official in the air defense unit of the army, said on Saturday that Yemeni drones had targeted Abha International Airport with several airstrikes earlier in the day, inflicting damage upon it.

The official further said the Yemeni army would increase such retaliatory attacks against Saudi bases and facilities in near future.

The report added that in the wake of the airstrikes, Saudi authorities published pictures of the prince of Asir inspecting the damage at the airport.

This as the Saudi-led coalition attacking Yemen said it had foiled an attempted "terrorist" attack by an unmanned drone near Abha airport, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV reported.

On April 11, the Yemeni Qasef-1 remote control drones carried out a similar attack on the airport that led to the temporary cancellation of all its flights to Jizan, Jeddah and the capital Riyadh.

Additionally on Saturday, Yemeni artillery fire destroyed a Saudi bulldozer near Alab border crossing in the same province.

In the past couple of months, Yemeni army units, backed by allied fighters from Popular Committees and fighters from the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement, have managed to hit different targets, either military or economic targets, in Saudi Arabia with ballistic missiles, rockets or drone attacks.

However, Saudi Arabia often claims that it intercepts incoming Yemeni missiles, but a close study of evidence by The New York Times last year clearly suggested that in one of the most high-profile of such Yemeni missile attacks, the projectile, launched deep into the Saudi territory, had in fact landed unimpeded, bypassing American-made Patriot missiles and potentially other defenses used by Riyadh. Saudi Arabia claimed that it had foiled that attack, which targeted the Riyadh airport.

Three children killed in Saudi raids

Separately on Saturday, Saudi warplanes conducted airstrikes on Yemen’s northern city of Sa’ada, killing three children and wounding 15 other civilians.

Back on October 27, Yemeni forces, using a surface-to-air missile, also shot down a Eurofighter Typhoon warplane belonging to the Royal Saudi Air Force as it was flying east of the Yemeni capital city of Sana’a.

Saudi Arabia and its allies launched the war on Yemen in March 2015 in support of the country’s former Riyadh-friendly government. The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights announced in a statement on March 25 that the Saudi-led war had left 600,000 civilians dead and injured until then.

In one of the deadliest air raids, Saudi warplanes last month targeted a wedding ceremony in Hajjah several times, killing almost 50 people and wounding 55 others. Saudi jets also carried out raids on the ambulances transporting the casualties to local hospitals.

The Saudi-led countries engaged in the war on Yemen have also blockaded the already-impoverished country.

According to the UN figures, a record 22.2 million people in Yemen are in need of food aid, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger.

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