Yemenis launch retaliatory missile attack on Saudi base in Najran

The Yemeni army, backed by popular committees loyal to the Ansarullah movement, has fired a ballistic missile at a Saudi military base in retaliation for Riyadh’s relentless attacks on the impoverished Arab nation.

The missile hit the Saudi airbase in the kingdom’s southern city of Najran on Saturday.

There were no immediate reports about casualties and the extent of the damage.

This is the third Yemeni missile attack on Saudi Arabia over the past days.

At least three Saudi troopers were killed on Tuesday in a retaliatory rocket attack launched by Yemeni forces on a military base in the in the kingdom’s southern province of Jizan.

On July 20, Ansarullah forces also fired a ballistic missile at an army base held by troops loyal to the resigned Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Saudi soldiers from an artillery unit fire shells towards Yemen from a post close to the Saudi-Yemeni border, in southwestern Saudi Arabia, on April 13, 2015. ©AFP

According to reports, around 180 troops, including foreign mercenaries, were killed in the attack in the Bab el-Mandeb region in the country’s southwestern province of Ta’izz.

Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against Yemen was launched on March 26, 2015 in a bid to reinstate Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh, and defeat the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

Meanwhile, Saudi warplanes on Saturday carried out fresh airstrikes in areas in Yemen’s Hajjah and Ta’izz provinces with no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

More than 9,400 people have been killed and at least 16,000 others sustained injuries since the onset of the Saudi aggression against its southern neighbor.