Media reports have quoted Houthi forces as claiming a rocket battalion attack on the Dubai International Airport. The UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), however, denied the Houthi media claims and affirmed that the UAE air traffic was operating business as usual. The denial was carried by official news agency WAM in a one-sentence statement.
According to the Houthi forces’ official media wing, their rocket battalion bombed the Dubai International Airport in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with one of their armed drones.
The Houthi forces said the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) they used was their Samad Type-3 armed drone.
No further details have been released either by the Dubai authorities or the Houthi forces. The Houthis had a couple of months ago threatened to target the UAE, which is partnering the Saudi coalition in the offensive against the Islamic grouping. Observers had at that time expressed the view that a ballistic missile strike on Dubai will send shock waves around the world and would most likely generate irresistible pressure on the US and UK to intervene directly in the Yemeni conflict.
While WAM reported only one line about the purported attack on the Dubai airport, it gave more details about a ballistic missile attack aimed at Saudi Arabia, which, according to the agency, was intercepted by the Saudi Arabia’s Royal Air Defence Forces. No injuries or casualties were reported.
Colonel Turki Al Malki, the Arab Coalition official spokesman, said that at 11.45 a.m. today, the Coalition Air Defence detected the launch of a ballistic missile from Saada in Yemen towards Saudi Arabia. “The number of ballistic missiles launched by the Houthi militias towards the Kingdom has so far reached 182 in total,” he noted.
Al Malki added that the ballistic missile was launched “deliberately” by the terrorist Houthi militias towards a densely populated civilian area of Saudi Arabia’s city of Jizan.
“This hostile act carried out by the terrorist Iranian Houthi militia proves that the Iranian regime continues to provide the Houthi militias with advanced weapons capabilities, in flagrant defiance of UNSC Resolutions 2216 and 2231, with the main objective of threatening Saudi Arabian, regional and international security,” he continued.
Al Malki reiterated that the launch of ballistic missiles towards civilian populated areas is a direct breach of the principles of the international humanitarian law.
