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Yemen rebels fire missiles at US warship, S Arabia
SANAA: Yemen’s Houthi movement launched a ballistic missile deep into Saudi Arabia and may have also fired on a US warship, two days after an apparent Saudi-led
SANAA: Yemen’s Houthi movement launched a ballistic missile deep into Saudi Arabia and may have also fired on a US warship, two days after an apparent Saudi-led air strike killed 140 mourners at a funeral attended by powerful tribal leaders.
Saturday’s air strike ripped through a wake attended by some of the country’s top political and security officials, outraging Yemeni society and potentially galvanising powerful tribes to join the Houthis in opposing a Saudi-backed exiled government.
On Monday, a Saudi-led coalition waging war in Yemen said it had intercepted a missile fired by the Houthis at a military base in Taif in central Saudi Arabia, striking deeper then ever before in the latest in a series of more than a dozen missile attacks.
A missile was also fired at Marib in central Yemen, a base for pro-government militiamen and troops who have struggled to advance on the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa.
A US military spokesman said two missiles were fired from Houthi-held territory at the USS Mason, a guided missile destroyer sailing north of the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait. Neither missile hit the ship.
The Houthis denied firing at the US ship.
Riyadh is leading a coalition of Arab states which began launching air strikes in Yemen 18 months ago to restore to power ousted President Abd Rabbu Mansour al-Hadi, who was driven from the capital two years ago by the Houthis.
The Houthis, fighters from a Shia sect that ruled a thousand-year kingdom in northern Yemen until 1962, are allied to Hadi’s predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh.
