Saudi-led coalition says it intercepted Houthi missiles aimed at Riyadh and Khamis Mushait
Yemen Herald News 
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted and destroyed a Houthi ballistic missile north of Riyadh on Wednesday, and a second aimed at Khamis Mushait.
The announcement came from Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki, the coalition’s spokesman, in a post on X.
The account rests on the coalition’s own statements. No independent confirmation of the interceptions has been published, and Yemen Herald could not verify them.
“A ballistic missile launched by the terrorist Houthi militia north of Riyadh city was intercepted and destroyed,” al-Maliki said. The characterisation of the group is the coalition’s.
He said a further ballistic missile launched toward Khamis Mushait, in southern Saudi Arabia, was also intercepted and destroyed.
The coalition said the Wednesday interception took place north of Riyadh city. It did not give a time for the launch aimed at Khamis Mushait.
Al-Maliki is the spokesman for what the alliance calls the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen.
The coalition said it was tracking the launch platform with its intelligence system over Sanaa and would destroy it.
Al-Maliki said on Thursday that the platform used in the Wednesday launch had been destroyed in Sanaa while it was being prepared for another attack on Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi Press Agency quoted him as saying that Sanaa and the governorates of Saada and Amran are the sources of Houthi missile threats.
He said the coalition would continue to neutralise ballistic and surface-to-surface missile threats and destroy their sources.
The exchanges continued on Thursday. Al-Maliki said two more Houthi ballistic missiles aimed at Riyadh had been intercepted and destroyed.
A third missile was directed at Khamis Mushait, according to accounts of his statement. The coalition said that one was brought down as well.
Saudi Arabia’s civil defence agency said falling debris from an intercepted missile caused material damage to a kindergarten and a medical clinic complex in Riyadh. It did not say whether anyone was hurt.
Witnesses told the Associated Press they heard several explosions in Riyadh, including one at the airport that halted flights. Those accounts have not been independently confirmed.
The Houthis give a different account. Yahya Saree, the group’s military spokesman, said on Thursday that a ballistic missile had been launched at King Khalid International Airport.
Saree said the missile “successfully hit its intended target, causing damage and disrupting air traffic.” The coalition says the missiles aimed at Riyadh were intercepted.
The group also warned aviation companies to avoid Saudi airspace, with the exception of the areas over Mecca and Medina.
The Houthis have claimed a series of attacks on Saudi territory over the past week. Al Jazeera reported claims against King Khalid International Airport, Abha airport, an Aramco refinery at Rabigh and the military base at Khamis Mushait.
Saudi Arabia did not comment publicly on each of those claims.
Saudi civil aviation authorities separately said attacks on Jazan and Najran airports on Monday evening caused three minor injuries.
Saudi civil aviation authorities said three people were killed and 36 injured in attacks on King Khalid and Abha airports.
Two women, one Moroccan and one Algerian, were killed at Abha, where 28 people were injured, according to that account. A Sudanese man was killed at King Khalid, where eight people were injured.
Those casualty figures rest on the Saudi authority’s account alone. No independent confirmation of them has been published.
The coalition said the operation followed the attacks on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and Abha International Airport in Asir.
The coalition said its Joint Forces carried out what it called a comprehensive operation against Houthi positions on Thursday.
It said 82 military targets were destroyed across Saada, Hodeidah, al-Jawf and Marib governorates.
The targets included 11 ballistic missile storage facilities built into mountains in Saada, according to the coalition. It also listed command and control centres, communications systems, missile and weapons depots, and gathering sites.
Al-Maliki said attacks on civilians and civilian objects “will not go unpunished.”
The coalition’s account of that operation has not been independently confirmed either. The Houthis dispute coalition descriptions of strikes on territory the group holds.
The coalition said earlier in the week that its naval forces had struck Houthi military targets in Hodeidah governorate, on Yemen’s Red Sea coast.
Explosions were reported near the airport in Hodeidah, the Houthi-controlled port city, on Thursday. The cause and the extent of any damage were not clear.
The missile exchanges run alongside ground fighting in south-western Yemen, where government forces and the Houthis have contested territory in Taiz governorate and along the Red Sea coast.
Each side disputes the other’s account of that fighting.
Government forces said they had reached the outskirts of the Red Sea port of Mocha, and Yemen’s defence ministry later said the city had fallen. A Houthi military spokesman called the reports “fabricated heroics.”
The International Organization for Migration said on Wednesday that 201,217 people had been displaced in Yemen since early September. Taiz governorate accounted for 57 percent of them.
Yemen has been at war since the Houthis seized Sanaa and several provinces in 2014. A Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year in support of the internationally recognised government.
Khamis Mushait lies in Asir province, close to the border with Yemen. Abha, where one of the airport attacks took place, is in the same province.
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