Saudi Air Defences Destroy Houthi Ballistic Missile Fired Toward Eastern Province

The Saudi-led coalition said on Thursday that its air defences intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by Yemen's Houthi movement toward Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province. The announcement marked the third straight day of reported missile fire aimed at the kingdom.

Coalition spokesman Major General Turki al-Malki announced the interception in a post on X. "Air defences intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the terrorist Houthi militia toward the Eastern Province," he wrote, in the statement carried by AFP, Qatar News Agency and Anadolu.

Saudi Civil Defence had issued emergency warnings for the Eastern Province and for Najran in the southwest before the interception was announced. Both alerts were lifted after officials declared the danger had passed. The coalition reported no casualties and no damage from the missile.

A third region in three days

On Wednesday, the coalition said it destroyed a Houthi ballistic missile that was targeting Taif, in the west of the country. Late on Tuesday, debris from two intercepted ballistic missiles damaged a building, a construction site and a vehicle in Riyadh, the capital. Civil Defence officials reported no casualties in that incident.

The Houthis said this week that they had targeted the Ras Tanura refinery in the Eastern Province with a ballistic missile. The province, on the Gulf coast, holds the headquarters of Saudi Aramco at Dhahran and some of the kingdom's largest oil facilities, and it has been a repeated target during this month of attacks.

A widening campaign against the kingdom

Saudi Arabia has come under sustained attack from the Houthis through October, including a strike on Riyadh's international airport that AFP described as the kingdom's deadliest in years. Missile fire has now been reported toward the capital, the west and the Gulf coast on consecutive days.

Fighting in Yemen reignited in July, after an uneasy four-year truce broke down, and months into the conflict between the United States and Iran that has spread across the region. Tehran has denied any role in the Houthi attacks, after Saudi Arabia accused Iran of encouraging the group to escalate against the kingdom.

The Saudi-led coalition backs Yemen's internationally recognised government and has fought the Houthis since March 2015, after the group took over large parts of Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa, in 2014. The coalition did not say where Thursday's missile was launched from or where it was brought down.