Riyadh: The Saudi-led coalition battling rebels in Yemen said on Monday it shot down a missile fired by the insurgents towards an airbase in southern Saudi Arabia.
The missile was the latest aimed at the kingdom since the coalition began air raids to support Yemen’s internationally-backed government in March last year.
Khamis Mushait air base, in Saudi Arabia’s southwest, has been at the forefront of the coalition bombing campaign against Al Houthi rebels and their allies.
Saudi Arabia has deployed Patriot missile batteries to counter tactical ballistic missiles fired occasionally from Yemen during the war.
The latest missile attack came after witnesses and residents on Sunday said coalition air strikes killed at least 22 people near Yemen’s rebel-held capital Sana’a.
But coalition spokesman General Ahmad Assiri said: “All our operations in the area were targeting Al Houthi positions and members.”
Fighting in Yemen has intensified since the collapse of UN-backed peace talks in Kuwait on August 6.
Rebels have also fired harder-to-detect Katyusha rockets, particularly into the Saudi border city of Najran.
More than 100 civilians and soldiers have died in strikes and skirmishes along the frontier.
In Yemen, the fighting since March last year has killed more than 6,600 people, most of them civilians, and displaced at least three million others, according to the United Nations.
