Riyadh denies Scud attack on its base
28 KILLED IN CAR BOMB EXPLOSION ON AL HOUTHI LEADERS IN SANA’A, DAESH CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY
The Saudi military says no Scud missiles have struck the country, rebutting claims by Yemeni militiamen that they launched a missile targeting the kingdom.
Yemen’s Al Houthi militia said late on Monday that they launched a Scud at a Saudi military base that is located about 700 kilometres southeast of the capital, Riyadh.
The Saudi Ministry of Defence said in a statement yesterday the military base in question is secure and that no missiles had reached it.
The military also said yesterday that a soldier died the previous day from wounds sustained in an Al Houthi strike launched from Yemen against the Saudi border region of Najran.
Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition of countries targeting the Al Houthis and allied forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Yemen’s official Saba news agency, which is controlled by the Al Houthis, reported early yesterday that the militia had launched a Scud missile at the Al Salil military base, near the Saudi capital Riyadh. “The missile is in response to the aggression of Saudi Arabia, which is increasing its criminal air raids against our country,” Saba reported, citing a military spokesman.
“This is another message to the forces of oppression,” he added, promising “new surprises in the coming days.” Meanwhile, an attack on Al Houthi leaders in the Yemeni capital claimed by Daesh killed at least 28 people, medics said, the latest deadly assault on the Al Houthis by the extremists.
Attacks
Yemen was previously the preserve of Daesh’s rival Al Qaida, which controls swathes of the south and east, but since March the group has claimed a string of high-profile attacks.
The car bomb targeted Al Houthi chief brothers Faisal and Hamid Jayash during a gathering to mourn the death of a family member, a security source said. Eight women were among the dead.
Al Houthi militiamen closed down the surrounding area in the centre of Sana’a after the attack, only allowing through emergency services to help evacuate the victims, witnesses said. The explosion blew a crater in the road, took chunks out of nearby walls and left debris strewn across the street.
In a statement posted online, Daesh said it had organised the attack on what it called a “Shiite nest”. Just on Friday, a Saudi Daesh suicide bomber killed 26 people and wounded 227 in a mosque in Kuwait.
In Yemen, Daesh claimed a car bombing that killed two people outside a mosque in Sana’a on June 20 and a series of attacks in the capital four days earlier that killed 31.
The group, which marked the first anniversary of the declaration of its “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria on Monday, began its Yemen campaign in March with a series of bombings of mosques that killed 142 people.
Overshadowed
The deadly attacks have overshadowed the operations of Daesh’s rival in Yemen, Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.
AQAP has taken advantage of the Al Houthi rebellion to consolidate its grip of the southeastern province of Hadramout, overrunning its capital Mukalla in March.
And it is still regarded as the network’s most dangerous branch by Washington, which has kept up a drone war against it in Mukalla.
But analysts said Daesh was now clearly in the ascendant.
Daesh is “in the process of supplanting AQAP, which is becoming just one of a number of forces in the Sunni tribal camp in Southern Yemen,” said Mathieu Guidere, professor of Islamic studies at the University of Toulouse in France.
The Iran-backed Al Houthis have seized vast swathes of the country since launching an offensive in July 2014, forcing President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee to Saudi Arabia.
Further south, in Dhaleh province, forces opposed to the Al Houthis said yesterday they had killed 167 militiamen and captured 30 in three days of heavy fighting.