Saudi man killed by missile from Yemen

Air strike on Sanaa kills Houthi leaders

DUBAI/CAIRO/ADEN (Reuters) – Yemen’s Houthi movement fired ballistic missiles at what it called “economic and vital targets” in the southern Saudi province of Jizan on Saturday, and Saudi authorities said a man was killed by debris from the projectiles.

The attack appeared to be retaliation promised by Yemen’s dominant political faction in a war there as thousands attended a funeral in the Houthi-run capital Sanaa for a top Houthi official killed by a Saudi-led air strike last week.

Eyewitnesses in Sanaa reported Saudi-led air raids on Saturday near the downtown rally for the burial of Saleh al-Samad, the president of the political body that runs Houthi-controlled northern Yemen. There were no reports of casualties.

The Houthis said they fired eight ballistic missiles at “economic and vital targets” in Saudi’s Jizan province on Saturday, and Riyadh said it intercepted four of the projectiles.

Jizan civil defense spokesman Col. Yahya Abdullah Al-Qahtani said on Arabiya TV that the Saudi national was killed by “falling fragments of military projectiles.”

A picture accompanying the Arabiya TV report appeared to show the outside of a civilian home pockmarked by shrapnel.

The two sides in Yemen have fought to a stalemate after more than three years of war. A Saudi-led military coalition is trying to restore Yemen’s internationally recognized government that was forced into exile after the Houthis took over large parts of the country in 2014 and seized Sanaa.

Saudi and other warplanes from the mostly Gulf Arab alliance have carried out thousands of air strikes, repeatedly hitting markets, hospitals and other civilian targets, killing hundreds of civilians. The coalition says it does not target civilians.

The Houthis have fired more than 100 ballistic missiles into the kingdom, causing few casualties, but fueling accusations by their adversaries and the United States that Iran is providing the missiles to their Houthi allies.

Tehran and the Houthis deny the accusation. The group says it is fighting for Yemen’s sovereignty against a Western-backed plot to dominate the country.

Meanwhile, Yemeni security forces said they killed a senior Islamic State commander in a gun battle in the southern city of Aden on Saturday, dealing a blow to the group’s powerful Yemen branch.

Saleh Nasser Fadhl al-Bakshi held the title of “emir” for the Aden area in the terrorist group’s Yemen affiliate, which has killed hundreds of people, mostly security forces in the country’s south, in years of bombing and shooting attacks.

Counterterrorism forces surrounded Bakshi in a building, according to a statement on the Aden police Facebook page, when he and fellow terrorists refused to surrender.

In the ensuing shootout, one of the counterterrorism force members was killed along with Bakshi, whose bloodied corpse was displayed in a picture accompanying the police statement.

Three of his comrades were arrested, it added.

Islamic State gained a foothold in Yemen late in 2014 as the country collapsed into civil war between the armed Houthi movement and the internationally recognized government, opening a security vacuum and sparking Saudi-led military intervention.

Also on Saturday, Saudi state TV Ekhbariya said a Saudi-led coalition air strike on Sanaa killed two leaders of the armed Houthi group, .

The station gave no further details but Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV said that Houthi leaders were killed in a coalition air strike conducted on the Houthi’s Interior Ministry in Sanaa.

Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition that has been fighting the Houthis in neighboring Yemen since March 2015, after the movement drove Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile.