Feb 10, 2022: The US on Thursday “strongly” condemned a drone attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abha airport, in which 12 people were injured.
President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, said the “United States strongly condemns today’s terrorist attack.”
Stating that the Houthi rebels had claimed responsibility for the drones, Sullivan said Washington would “hold them accountable together with our Saudi and international partners.” He also noted that Biden had reiterated US support for Saudi Arabia during talks with King Salman on Wednesday.
Earlier, twelve people were injured when debris fell on Thursday when Saudi forces blew up a Yemeni rebel drone targeting an airport near the border, officials said. Fragments fell to the ground after the drone intervened at Abha International Airport, which had previously been the target of similar attacks by Iranian-backed insurgents. The Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack in a tweet, saying they had targeted an airport “used for military action against Yemen” and warned civilians to stay out of the area.
“Saudi defence forces destroyed a drone launched towards Abha International Airport,” the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said.
The SPA said “12 civilians” were hurt when the unmanned aircraft was intercepted, including citizens of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, as well as two Saudis.
In response, the Saudi-led coalition said it would strike positions from which the Huthis launch drones in Sanaa, the rebel-held capital of Yemen.
“We ask civilians in Sanaa to evacuate civilian sites used for military purposes for the next 72 hours,” it said, quoted by SPA.
He said Abha was a “civilian airport that is protected under international humanitarian law” and accused the rebels of a “war crime”.
Border provinces of Saudi Arabia have come under frequent drone or missile attack by the rebels, in what the Huthis say is retaliation for a deadly bombing campaign carried out by coalition aircraft against rebel-held areas.
Most have been safely intercepted by Saudi air defences, but in late December an attack on Jizan province on the Red Sea coast saw two people killed and seven wounded. The UAE has also been on alert since a drone and missile attack killed three oil workers in Abu Dhabi on January 17.
The attack was the first deadly assault on the UAE claimed by the Houthis, opening a new phase in the Yemeni war and puncturing the Gulf state’s image as a regional safe haven.
The civil war in Yemen broke out in 2014 when the Huthis seized Sanaa, prompting the Saudi-led coalition to intervene the following year to prop up the internationally recognised government.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed directly or indirectly in the conflict, while millions have been displaced in what the UN calls the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.
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