Yemen’s Houthi fighters hit Saudi arms depot
http://www.hrlnews.com/2019/05/yemens-houthi-fighters-hit-saudi-arms.html
Yemen’s Houthi fighters said Tuesday they launched a bomb-laden drone
into Saudi Arabia, targeting an arms depot of a military base located
at an airport.
The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has acknowledged the attack.
In a statement early Tuesday morning, KSA said that Yemen’s Houthi
fighters have launched a bomb-laden drone targeting civilian
infrastructure in a city along the kingdom’s border to Yemen.
Saudi Press Agency quoted Saudi-led Coalition spokesperson Colonel
Turki Al Maliki as saying the Houthis “had tried to target” the site in
Najran.
The statement did not elaborate, but used a word in Arabic that often refers to hospitals, power plants and schools.
It was not clear if there were any injuries or what the extent of damage was.
In the drone attack, the Houthis’ Al-Masirah satellite news channel
said early Tuesday they targeted the airport in Najran with a Qasef-2K
drone, striking an “arms depot.” Najran, 840 kilometers (525 miles)
southwest of Riyadh, lies on the Saudi-Yemen border and has repeatedly
been targeted by the Iran-allied Houthis.
The attack on the Saudi city of Najran came a day after it was
reported that Saudi Arabia shot down two ballistic missiles, one in
Taif, 50 km away from Makkah, and the other in Jeddah.
The missiles were fired by the Houthis according to Al Arabiya news channel.
The Saudi-owned satellite news channel said Yemen’s Houthi fighters
fired two missiles into the kingdom that later were intercepted.
Al Arabiya reported on Monday that the two missiles were intercepted over the city of Taif and the Red Sea port city of Jeddah.
The drone attack on Tuesday came as Iran announced it has quadrupled
its uranium-enrichment production capacity amid tensions with the U.S.,
underscored by an exchange of threats and taunts Monday on Twitter
between President Donald Trump and Iran’s foreign minister.
Iranian nuclear officials made a point to stress that the uranium
would be enriched only to the 3.67% limit set under the 2015 nuclear
deal with world powers, making it usable for a power plant but far below
what’s needed for an atomic weapon.
But by increasing production, Iran soon will exceed the stockpile
limitations set by the accord. Tehran has set a July 7 deadline for
Europe to set new terms for the deal, or it will enrich closer to
weapons-grade levels in a Middle East already on edge. The Trump
administration has deployed bombers and an aircraft carrier to the
Persian Gulf over still-unspecified threats from Iran.