One person was killed and seven others injured after Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacked an airport in southwest Saudi Arabia amid rising tensions in the region.
Iran-backed Houthis said they targeted Abha and Jizan airports with drone attacks. “Our operations continue and they will be more painful to the enemy in the coming days if they continue their escalation,” a spokesman said, according to the Houthi-run al-Masirah television channel.
The Saudi-led coalition said the attack on Abha airport took place at 9:10pm local time on Sunday (19.10 BST) and identified the man who was killed as a Syrian citizen. This was the second time that the airport was targeted this month. Another drone attack on June 12 left 26 people injured.
The airport said flights have resumed normally since the attack on Sunday.
Saudi Arabia accused Houthis on Friday of violating international law by targeting civilian infrastructure in Saudi cities as the rebels stepped up their missile and drone attacks against the kingdom.
In response, the Saudi-led coalition has launched airstrikes targeting the group’s military sites around the capital Sana’a and the port city of Hodeidah.
The western-backed Arab coalition launched its intervention in Yemen in 2015 to restore the internationally recognised government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after it had been ousted from power by Houthi rebels.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the UK and the US released a statement earlier on Sunday expressing concern over “escalating tensions in the region and the dangers posed by Iranian destabilising activity,” including attacks targeting oil tankers in the Gulf.
Iran has denied being involved in the tanker attacks.
Mike Pompeo, US secretary of state, set off for Saudi Arabia and the UAE on Sunday for talks to de-escalate tension with Iran after the Islamic Republic shot down an American surveillance drone in the Gulf.
Mr Pompeo told reporters that the goal of his talks with the two US allies was to “make sure that we are all strategically aligned” and to try to build a global coalition to “push back against the world’s largest state sponsor of terror”.
