The attack came a week after Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeted a fuel depot killing three people and causing a fire in Abu Dhabi and the city’s main airport, heightening tensions in the oil-exporting region.
Dubai: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Monday intercepted and destroyed two Houthi ballistic missiles targeting the Gulf country. The United Arab Emirates intercepted and destroyed two Houthi ballistic missiles targeting the Gulf country on Monday with no casualties, its defence ministry said, following a deadly attack a week earlier.
The UAE on Monday, January 24, 2022, intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles that the Houthi terror group fired towards its capital Abu Dhabi, the Ministry of Defence said, days after two Indians and a Pakistani were killed in a rare drone and missile attack claimed by the Yemeni rebels.
“The remnants of the intercepted ballistic missiles fell in separate areas around Abu Dhabi,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that it was taking the necessary protective measures against all attacks.
The Ministry also said in a statement that the UAE is ready to deal with any threats and that the authority would take all necessary measures to protect the country from all attacks, the official WAM news agency reported.
The attack came a week after Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeted a fuel depot killing three people, and causing a fire in Abu Dhabi and the city’s main airport, heightening tensions in the oil-exporting region.
A Houthi military spokesman did not immediately respond to questions from the Associated Press on Monday’s attack. Mohammed Abdul-Salam, a Houthi spokesman, later tweeted: “The Yemeni armed forces will reveal, in the coming hours, details of a military operation in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.”
For more than six years, the Houthis have been battling a Saudi-led coalition that includes the UAE, repeatedly carrying out cross-border missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, launching an unprecedented assault on the UAE on Jan. 17.
That war, pitting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels against a Saudi-led coalition, has become a regional conflict as negotiations continue over Tehran's tattered nuclear deal with world powers. The collapse of the accord has sparked years of attacks across the region.