The United Arab Emirates says it has intercepted and destroyed two Houthi ballistic missiles that were targeting the country, as Saudi defenses also destroyed a ballistic missile launched onto the south of the kingdom.
“The remnants of the intercepted ballistic missiles fell in separate areas around Abu Dhabi,” the UAE defence ministry said in a statement on the state-run WAM news agency.
In Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, state media said late on Sunday that a Houthi ballistic missile had fallen in the kingdom’s south, injuring two residents – a Bangladeshi and a Sudanese – and damaging workshops and vehicles in an industrial area.
A coalition statement said Saudi defenses destroyed the missile that targeted Dahran al-Janoub in the Asir region in southern Saudi Arabia.
A spokesman for Yemen’s Houthi rebels later said they had launched attacks targeting both the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, without elaborating.
Houthi-run Al Masirah television channel said the group would announce within hours the details of a “wide military operation” against Saudi Arabia and the UAE amid concern over a further escalation in tensions in the region amid Yemen’s years-long civil war.
The attack on Abu Dhabi, after another last week, further escalates tensions across the Persian Gulf as Yemen’s yearslong civil war grinds on.
