JEDDAH: Saudi air defences intercepted a “ballistic missile” fired by Yemeni rebels at the kingdom’s southern coastal city of Jizan, the Saudi-led coalition fighting the rebels said. It was the latest in a series of such attacks.

“Saudi air defences intercepted a ballistic missile launched by the Houthi militias targeting Jizan,” the coalition said in a statement.

The Houthis, in a statement on their news outlet Al-Masirah, claimed that they fired a “Badr 1” ballistic missile and said it struck Jizan Regional Airport.Saudi Arabia has since March 2015 led a coalition of Arab states fighting to roll back the Houthi rebels in Yemen and restore its neighbour’s internationally-recognised government to power.

Nearly 10,000 people have since been killed in the conflict, in what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

In March, an Egyptian labourer became the first known fatality in a rebel missile attack on the Saudi capital.

Saudi Arabia accuses its rival Iran of smuggling missiles to the Houthis — a charge Tehran denies.

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2018