https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2018\/03\/25\/middleeast\/saudi-arabia-intercepts-missile\/index.html<\/p>\n
\u2014 Saudi Arabia says one person was killed after seven missiles were fired from Yemen by Iranian-backed
\nHouthi rebels on Sunday. It’s the first death on Saudi soil since the Saudi-led coalition began a military intervention
\nin Yemen three years ago.
\nThe missiles were fired at four targets, including the capital city of Riyadh, and all were intercepted and destroyed,
\nsaid Saudi coalition forces spokesman Col. Turki al-Maliki in a statement. Fragments from the intercepted missiles
\nkilled an Egyptian resident, the statement added.
\n“These hostile acts continue to pose a direct threat to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and threaten regional, as well
\nas international, security,” the statement said.
\nHowever, in a statement, the Houthi Ministry of Defense claimed the missiles hit seven dierent
\ntargets inside Saudi
\nArabia, including four airports.
\nFollowing the missile strikes, thousands of people reportedly came out onto the streets of the capital Sanaa to take
\npart in demonstrations coinciding with the third anniversary of the intervention against the Houthi rebels.
\nIn a speech to demonstrators, Houthi leader Saleh al-Sammad told the Saudis to “stop your airstrikes, and we will
\nstop our missiles.”<\/p>\n
This is not the first time Saudi Arabia has been the target of missile strikes from Yemen and after previous
\ninterceptions, the Saudis have responded with airstrikes on Sanaa. The response to this latest incident is likely to
\nbe even more punishing.
\nOf the seven missiles, three were aimed at the Saudi capital city of Riyadh, one was headed toward the southwest
\nin Khamis Mushait, one along the southern border targeting Najran and two for the southern city of Jizan,
\naccording to the Saudis.<\/p>\n
The Yemeni government, which has been fighting Houthi militia in the north of the country, laid blame for the
\nmissile attacks on Iran, which has backed the rebels.
\n“While the Yemeni government expresses its strong condemnation of this criminal and terrorist act of Iran and its
\ntools represented by the Houthi militia, the government also praised the high eciency
\nand capabilities of the
\nSaudi Air Defense Forces in intercepting and destroying Iran’s ballistic missiles,” the Yemeni government said in a
\nstatement on news agency SABA Net.
\nThe US, an ally of the Saudis, condemned Sunday’s attack by the Houthis and issued a statement saying it
\nsupported “the right of our Saudi partners to defend their borders against these threats.”
\nBetween November and December of last year, the Saudis intercepted at least two missiles targeting its capital.
\nSince then, Yemeni rebels have continued targeting locations along the country’s border with Yemen.
\nWhat is happening in Yemen?
\nThe Yemen war began in early 2015, when Houthi rebels — a minority Shia group from the north of the country —
\ndrove out the US-backed government, led by President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and took over Sanaa.
\nThe crisis quickly escalated into a multi-sided war, which allowed al-Qaeda and ISIS to grow stronger amid the
\nchaos.
\nThe Houthis are backed by Iran and its members follow the Shia Islamic branch of Zaidism. Zaidis make up around
\na third of Yemen’s population and ruled the country’s north for almost 1,000 years until 1962.
\nThe Saudi-led coalition began its air raids in support of Hadi’s government in March 2015.
\nWhat has Iran got to do with it?<\/p>\n
\/4\/2018 Saudi Arabia intercepts 7 missiles fired from Yemen – CNN
\nhttps:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2018\/03\/25\/middleeast\/saudi-arabia-intercepts-missile\/index.html 4\/4
\nSaudi Arabia has blamed Iran in the past for supplying the rebels with weapons. After the November 4 missile
\nstrike, the Kingdom’s foreign minister accused Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant and political group that is
\naligned with Iran, of smuggling missile parts into Yemen.
\n“Operatives from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and
\nHezbollah” helped put it back together again and launch it,
\nForeign Minister Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir told CNN.
\n“This is a very, very hostile act,” he said. “We have been
\nextending our hand to Iran since 1979 in friendship, and what
\nwe get back is death and destruction.”
\nIran at the time responded to the Saudi claims of Tehran’s
\ninvolvement, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram
\nQassemi calling the accusations “false, irresponsible,
\ndestructive and provocative,” according to the Iranian news
\nagency Tasnim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2018\/03\/25\/middleeast\/saudi-arabia-intercepts-missile\/index.html \u2014 Saudi Arabia says one person was killed after seven missiles were fired from Yemen by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels on Sunday. It’s the first death on Saudi soil since the Saudi-led coalition began a military intervention in Yemen three years ago. The missiles were fired at four targets, including the capital city of Riyadh, and all were intercepted and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1555,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions\/1555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}