Two ballistic missiles fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels were intercepted and destroyed over the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Emirati Ministry of Defense said yesterday, as tensions soared a week after a deadly attack on Abu Dhabi.
Debris from the missiles fell across the Emirati city.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for a drone-and-missile attack that killed three people last week.
Photo: Planet Labs PBC via AP
“The attack did not result in any casualties, while the remnants of the intercepted and destroyed ballistic missiles fell in separate areas around the Emirate of Abu Dhabi,” a statement said.
The ministry said it “is ready to deal with any threats” and “is taking all necessary measures to protect the state from all attacks,” the Emirates News Agency reported.
The Houthis appeared to claim the attack when spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said that he would reveal details of a “military operation” in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
“The Yemeni armed forces will unveil in the next few hours details of a military operation deep in UAE and Saudi Arabia,” he wrote on Twitter.
Last week’s attack was a shock for the UAE, usually an oasis of calm in the volatile region. It was the first deadly attack on UAE soil acknowledged by the Emiratis and claimed by the Houthis.
It triggered a series of airstrikes on Yemen, where the UAE is part of the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Iran-backed rebels.
Fourteen people died in an air raid on the capital, Sana’a, and at least three children were killed in an attack on Hodeida that knocked out the struggling country’s Internet.
The coalition denied carrying out a strike on a prison in Saada — the rebels’ home base — that killed at least 70 people and wounded more than 100.
Aid agencies dismissed the coalition’s denial, saying that witnesses in Saada heard fighter jets overhead followed by three loud explosions.
“This is the latest in a long line of unjustifiable airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition on places like schools, hospitals, markets, wedding parties and prisons,” said Ahmed Mahat, Doctors Without Borders head of mission in Yemen.
Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized Sana’a, prompting Saudi-led forces to intervene to prop up the government the following year.
The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people directly or indirectly, and left millions on the brink of famine, says the UN, which calls it the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe.
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