16 injured after Houthi drone attack on Saudi airport

CAIRO - The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said on Monday its forces had destroyed a drone launched towards King Abdallah airport in the southern Saudi Arabian city of Jizan, state media reported.

Shrapnel from the destroyed drone resulted in 16 civilian injuries, state media quoted a coalition statement as saying.

The coalition added that the drone was launched from the Yemeni capital Sanaa's airport.

The attack against Jizan, a region near Saudi Arabia's border with Yemen, comes on the eve of a patriotic day in the kingdom as the nation prepares to celebrate its first-ever Founding Day. The date, which is different from the traditional national day, is meant to symbolically commemorate the founding and unification of the Saudi state by its Al Saud rulers. Nationwide celebrations have been planned and the king has deemed it a holiday for both the private and public sectors.

The incident also comes less than two weeks after a similar attempted drone attack and interception resulted in 12 people wounded at an airport in the southern Saudi region of Abha, also near the kingdom’s border with Yemen.

The war in Yemen has killed tens of thousands of people, both fighters and civilians, and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Many more have been internally displaced.

The United Nations said January’s civilian casualties were the highest in at least three years. More than 650 civilians were killed or injured last month by airstrikes, shelling, small arms fire and other violence. A coalition airstrike hit a detention facility in the Houthi stronghold of Saada in January, killing or injuring more than 300 detainees.

Fighting in the strategic city of Marib in past months has led to increased Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which is part of the Saudi-led coalition and backs Yemeni militias fighting the Houthis.