10th July, 2018
(AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, File)
The Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen said it launched a missile at Jizan Economic City in southern Saudi Arabia, Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported on Tuesday.
It was not clear if the missile had reached its target and there was no immediate comment from Saudi officials.
The Houthis have launched several missiles at Saudi cities in recent months, most of which have been intercepted by Saudi air defence forces.
Earlier, Saudi Arabia’s air defence forces said they intercepted a missile launched toward the kingdom’s southwestern Jizan region by Yemen’s armed Houthi movement.
The Houthi-run al-Masirah TV said earlier that a Badr 1 missile had targeted Jizan Economic City, where Saudi Aramco is building a 400,000-barrel-per-day refinery that is expected to become fully operational in 2019.
There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
The Iran-aligned Houthis, who control Yemen’s capital Sanaa, have fired dozens of missiles into the kingdom in recent months, part of a three-year-old conflict widely seen as a proxy battle between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Most of the missiles have been intercepted by the Saudi military.
A military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates intervened in Yemen’s war in 2015 to unseat the Houthis and restore the internationally-recognized government in exile.
The Western-backed coalition has made no major gains in an offensive launched a month ago to wrest control of Yemen’s Hodeidah port from the Houthis, leaving it without the decisive increase in leverage it had sought against the group in U.N.-sponsored peace efforts.