Saudi Arabia said it shot down a ballistic missile Tuesday over Riyadh fired from Yemen by Iran-backed Huthi rebels, who announced that the target was the official residence of King Salman. The audacious attack aimed at the heart of Saudi power follows the downing of another missile last month near Riyadh airport that triggered the tightening of a Saudi-led blockade on hunger-stricken Yemen.
For the past three years Saudi Arabia has led a military campaign involving air strikes and ground troops against the Huthis, who seized the Yemeni capital from the internationally recognised government in 2014. The kingdom accuses the Shia rebels of being a proxy for its arch foe Iran, which vehemently denies arming the insurgents.
An AFP correspondent in Riyadh heard a loud explosion at 1050 GMT, shortly before King Salman was due to oversee the unveiling of the Saudi annual budget.
"The missile was aimed at populated residential areas in the Riyadh area, and - thank God - was intercepted and destroyed south of Riyadh without any casualties," the official Saudi Press Agency quoted a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition as saying.
"The possession of Iranian-manufactured ballistic weapons by terrorist organisations, including the Iran-backed Huthi militia, is a threat to regional and international security," Turki al-Maliki added. More than 8,750 people have been killed since Saudi Arabia and its allies joined the government's fight against the Huthis in 2015, triggering what the UN has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
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