Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen killed one person and wounded seven in an attack on a Saudi Arabian civilian airport on Sunday evening – the second attack on the facility in just two weeks.
Coalition spokesman Col Turki al-Maliki said the “terrorist attack” on Abha airport – about 70 miles from the Saudi-Yemeni border – took place at about 21:10 local time. The injured civilians were Saudi, Egyptian, Indian, and Bangladeshi nationals, and included three women and two children.
Col Maliki added that the Iranian-sponsored terrorist group had “continued its immoral practices by targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure protected under international humanitarian law and its customary rules”, and that the attack could amount to a war crime.
He did not specify the type of weapon used in the attack.
A Houthi spokesman said the group had launched drones at the Abha and Jizan airports in southern Saudi Arabia. The spokesman added: “More painful operations will continue if the Saudi-led aggression and siege against Yemen continue.”
The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the country “strongly condemns this terrorist act and labels it as a new evidence of the Iranian-backed Houthi militias’ hostile and terrorist tendencies to undermine security and stability in the region.”
Houthi fighters first fired a missile at Abha airport on June 12. Two children were among 26 civilians injured when a cruise missile struck the arrivals hall. Human Rights Watch described that attack as a war crime under international humanitarian law.
Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo charged that Iran is instructing the Houthi rebels to violate a fragile ceasefire agreement reached in December between the Tehran-sponsored terrorist group and the Yemeni government.
Pompeo explained that Iran’s control over the Houthis was also seen “with the missile system, the hardware, [and] the military capability” that they had acquired. “These are not Houthi indigenous weapons systems. They have been smuggled into Yemen from Iran.”