Houthis launch drone attack on Saudi air base

Sanaa: Yemen’s Houthi militia said they attacked the King Khalid Air Base in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern city of Khamis Mushait with two explosive-laden drones.

“The drones hit the air base accurately,” Xinhua news agency quoted Houthi spokesman Yehya Sarea as saying on the rebels-run al-Masirah TV Saturday.

But the Saudi-led coalition said that it intercepted and destroyed a bomb-laden drone launched by the Houthi militia toward Khamis Mushait.

Cross-border missile and drone attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis have escalated since February when the group began a major offensive against the Saudi-backed Yemeni government army to capture the oil-rich province of Marib.

A recent UN-brokered negotiation between Yemen’s warring sides and other relevant parties has failed to produce a cease-fire agreement.

Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 when the Houthi militia seized control of several northern provinces and forced the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of the capital Sanaa.

The Saudi-led Arab coalition intervened in the Yemeni conflict in March 2015 to support Hadi’s government.