Yemen’s militant Houthis fire more missiles at UAE, but they are intercepted

3 yıl önce

The United Arab Emirates said Monday it had intercepted two more ballistic missiles launched by Yemenâs Houthi militants who have pledged to âexpandâ their military operations against adversaries in the Persian Gulf.

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The missile assault caused no casualties, a UAE defense ministry statement said. It was the second Houthi attack on the UAE in a week, representing a rapid and dangerous broadening of violence from Yemenâs seven-year civil war.

Three killed in UAE capital in suspected drone attack claimed by Yemen rebels

The Houthis cast the drone attacks last week as retaliation for the UAEâs stepped-up military intervention in Yemen. The attacks killed three people and were followed by a rash of deadly airstrikes on Yemen carried out by the Saudi-led military coalition that includes the UAE. The strikes hit a detention center killing at least 82 people and a telecommunications center that knocked out Internet coverage across much of Yemen and killed three children playing nearby.

As of Monday, Internet service had not been restored.

After Mondayâs attack, a Houthi military statement said the movement would confront âescalation with escalationâ and warned foreign companies and investors to leave the UAE.

The spiraling conflict appears most damaging for the Emiratis, who have portrayed the country as an oasis of calm amid conflicts around the region and in the last few years have sought to signal a diminishing role in Yemenâs ruinous war, which has caused widespread humanitarian suffering.

The UAE, along with Saudi Arabia and a coalition of other Arab countries, intervened in the war in 2015 with the aim of beating back Houthi advances across the country.

The Houthi military statement Monday described a broader attack than the Emiratis had acknowledged, saying that the rebels had targeted an air base âand other sensitive targetsâ in Abu Dhabi with ballistic missiles, as well as other unnamed sites in neighboring Dubai with drones. The statement added that attacks had been carried out on Saudi Arabia as well.

More than 60 killed, including children, in airstrikes in Yemen

A Saudi statement said that the military had destroyed ballistic missiles heading toward the eastern city of Dhahran. The kingdomâs civil defense directorate said that a missile had also fallen on the southern Jazan region, injuring two foreign nationals and damaging vehicles and industrial workshops.

Amid the cycle of strikes and retaliations, the Internet outage has caused an unsettling interruption in news from Yemen, amid reports of frequent attacks and worries that it would hamper financial remittances sent to the country and interrupt the work of aid agencies operating there.

SiobhÃ¡n OâGrady contributed reporting from Cairo.

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