Houthi missile targets Saudi desalination plant

RIYADH — The Arab coalition fighting to restore legitimacy in Yemen said on Thursday a projectile launched by Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels had landed on Wednesday night near a desalination plant in Al-Shuqaiq in Saudi Arabia, causing no casualties or damage.

In a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the coalition spokesman, Col. Turki Al-Maliki said security forces were working to determine the type of projectile that had been used in the attack.

Shuqaiq is in the southwestern Saudi province of Jazan bordering Yemen.

The attack targeting civilian facilities constitutes a war crime and it shows that Iran is supplying the Houthi militias with new weapons, Al-Maliki said.

He added that the Houthis continued to use Yemen's Hodeida port to smuggle weapons and destabilize the region and the world at large.

The Saudi-led coalition announced on Wednesday that it had downed an explosives-laden drone that was flown by the Iranian-aligned militias in Yemen toward Saudi Arabia.

Al-Maliki said the alliance forces intercepted and destroyed the aircraft over Yemen’s Hajjah region before it entered the Saudi airspace.

The drone was launched from the Red Sea province of Hodeida, he said.

The terrorist Houthis continue violating the ceasefire and the terms of the Stockholm deal, which was signed in December 2018, Al-Maliki said.

They use Hodeida as a platform to launch hostile operations, through ballistic missiles, drones and booby-trapped remote-controlled vessels that pose a real threat to regional and international security, the spokesman added.

He said such acts undermined political efforts to ensure the success of the Stockholm deal and violated international humanitarian conventions.

Al-Malki said the coalition would take appropriate measures to deal with all hostile and terrorist acts in line with International Humanitarian Law.