(Johannesburg = Yonhap News) Correspondent Na Confirmation = Yemen's pro-Iran Houthi rebels claimed to have attacked Saudi Arabia's airport and military facilities again on the 7th (local time).
According to the Associated Press and AFP, Houthi spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Sari announced on social media that the Houthis launched ballistic missiles and drones toward King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
Major General Turki al-Maliki, a member of the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis, said he had intercepted a ballistic missile north of Riyadh.
According to flight tracking site FlightTrader24, flight operations around King Khalid Airport were disrupted for a while on this day.
When the Yemeni government forces and the Saudi-led coalition declared Operation Dawn of Yemen on the 4th to recapture territory controlled by the Houthis and launched a large-scale offensive, the Houthis later revealed that they attacked airports and oil refineries on the Saudi mainland one after another with ballistic missiles and drones.
On the 5th, they said they attacked Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport, the Aramco oil refinery in the western coastal city of Rabigh, the southwestern Abha Airport and the nearby Hamis Mushait Air Base, and military facilities in the Asir, Najran, and Jazan regions. They also claimed that they attacked other Saudi airports the next day.
In response, the Saudi government said that attacks on airports in Najran and Jazan injured three people and caused material damage, and that it intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis from Hamis Mushait.
AP reported that a new steel fence has been installed around Aramco's fuel tanks and other facilities near Riyadh Airport.
The American think tank Institute for War Studies (ISW) analyzed that "the Houthis believe that by attacking civilian infrastructure such as oil facilities and airports, they can maximize the economic cost to Saudi Arabia and pressure Saudi Arabia to accept the Houthis' demands."
Yemeni government forces and the allied forces have been conducting a large-scale ground and air offensive since the 4th to recapture the territory that the Houthis controlled in the Red Sea coast and Bab el-Mandeb Strait area a month ago.
Yemeni military officials announced on the 5th that they had recaptured several key areas around the strait. However, it is reported that fighting is still continuing around major bases such as Dubab and Moka.
Additionally, the Houthis are known to be continuing their offensive against Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city, and attacked the international airport in Aden, the temporary capital of the Yemeni government, using ballistic missiles and drones.
As fighting intensifies, the number of refugees in Yemen is rapidly increasing.
The United Nations' International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced today that the number of internally displaced people in Yemen increased from 76,000 in the middle of last month to 201,217 in just a few weeks.
IOM Director-General Amy Pope said, “People are fleeing for their lives but have no safe place to go,” and called for additional funding as demand for food and shelter increases.
