Yemenis launch retaliatory missile, drone strikes on Saudi Arabia

Yemeni armed forces have targeted Saudi Arabia’s eastern and southern regions with ballistic missiles and drones in retaliation for the Riyadh regime’s bloody war and siege on its impoverished neighbor.

In a statement released on Saturday, Saudi Arabia claimed that its air defenses had intercepted and destroyed three ballistic missiles and three explosive-laden drones launched towards the Eastern Province as well as Jizan and Najran regions.

Military spokesman Brigadier General Turki al-Maliki claimed that the interception caused shrapnel to scatter over a neighborhood in Dammam city, injuring two Saudi children. It also slightly damaged 14 residential houses, he added.

Saudi Arabia “will take the necessary and deterrent measures to protect its lands and capabilities, and stop such hostile and cross-border attacks to protect civilians, in accordance with international humanitarian law”, Maliki said.

Earlier, some media sources reported hearing two loud explosions in the oil city of Dammam, situated in Eastern Province.

Elsewhere in the city of Dhahran, also located in Eastern province, witnesses said that facilities belonging to state-controlled oil giant Saudi Aramco had been shut down due to blasts in their vicinity caused by missile and drone attacks.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that there was no impact on Aramco facilities and that the attack had happened outside them.

Yemeni forces regularly target positions inside Saudi Arabia in response to the devastating military aggression, which was launched in March 2015 with arms and logistics support from the US and several other Western countries.

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The aim of the war was to return to power the Saudi-backed former regime and crush the popular Ansarullah movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective government in Yemen.

However, Saudi Arabia has failed to achieve any of its goals, despite killing tens of thousands of Yemenis and turning Yemen into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Meanwhile, Yemeni armed forces have vowed to continue their retaliatory strikes on Saudi targets until the protracted war and siege come to an end.

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