Yemen’s Houthis said they launched missiles at Abha airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia on Monday in response to airstrikes on Sanaa airport that they blamed on the kingdom.
The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, which supports the country’s internationally recognized government, said its air defenses had “dealt with” the missiles and that no casualties had been reported.
The Houthis, who control northwest Yemen and are backed by Iran, had previously accused Saudi Arabia of “blatant aggression”, saying it had struck the runway at Sanaa airport.
The strike was claimed by the Yemeni government, which said it wanted to prevent the landing of an Iranian plane.
It is the most significant escalation in the largely simmering conflict between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia since an informal truce took effect four years ago.
Yemen has been devastated by a civil war that began in 2014, when the Houthis ousted the government from Sanaa, the capital. The conflict intensified in 2015, after the Saudi-led coalition of Arab states intervened to try to restore government power.
The fighting has reportedly left more than 150,000 dead and sparked one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with more than 22 million people in need of some form of aid, according to the UN.
On Monday afternoon, images posted on social media showed plumes of smoke rising above the rooftops of Sanaa after the strikes at the city’s international airport.
The Houthis’ al-Masirah television said “departure and landing runways” were targeted.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government, based in the southern port of Aden, said its forces carried out the strikes amid a dispute over the plane used by a Houthi delegation returning from Iran after the funeral of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“The Houthi terrorist militias, supported by the Iranian regime, prevented a Yemeni national plane from landing at the airport of the capital, Sanaa, while insisting on allowing an Iranian plane to violate Yemeni territory; as a result, the airport runway was targeted,” the Yemeni Defense Ministry said.
The Iranian plane had to divert and then landed in the Red Sea town of Hudaydah, about 150 kilometers to the southwest, according to the Houthis.
For more than a decade, planes entering Yemeni airspace have had to obtain permission from the Saudi-led coalition, which says it is acting at the request of the Yemeni government.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree accused Saudi Arabia of being behind the Sanaa strikes, which he said ended the “de-escalation phase” of their conflict and would not go “unanswered and unpunished.”
Saudi authorities made no comment on the strikes before Saree announced late Monday that the Houthis had launched a number of ballistic missiles and drones at Abha International Airport “in response to this criminal Saudi aggression.”
He also warned airlines against flying over Saudi airspace “until the blockade of Sanaa International Airport is lifted.”
The spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen later wrote on
At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in New York, Deputy Secretary-General Khaled Khiari expressed concern over the strikes.
“Yemen and the region as a whole cannot afford a new cycle of escalation,” he said.
“We call on all actors to engage constructively in the negotiations under the auspices of the UN.”
The UK’s representative to the UN said he strongly condemned the Houthis’ “reckless attacks on Saudi Arabia, which threaten regional security”.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, condemned the attack on Sanaa airport, saying it was a “blatant violation of international law.”