Saudis shoot down missile from Yemen

JEDDAH: A Yemeni rebel missile was intercepted over the Kingdom late Friday, the Saudi-led Arab coalition said, as the death toll from a Houthi attack on a Yemeni army camp rose to 32.

The coalition said the missile, directed at Jazan, caused no casualties. The coalition destroyed the missile launch pad.

Meanwhile, coalition troops, supporting the legitimate Yemeni government, destroyed on Thursday three Houthi boats off the Midi port in Yemen, the central command announced Saturday. The boats were on their daily mission to attack coalition ships.

The coalition’s navy destroyed one boat, captured the other with its crew, while the third managed to escape to the high seas. The navy chased it late Saturday. The arrested crew members are being investigated.

Separately, the government condemned ousted Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the Houthi militias, which launched rockets at a mosque in the province of



Al-Maarib during Friday prayers, which left 32 dead and 81 wounded.

Military sources said the rebels hit the Kofel camp in Sarwah district with a Katyusha-type multiple rocket launcher and hit the mosque at the army camp crowded with soldiers. Al-Maarib province lies on the border with Saudi Arabia and most of it has been retaken by government forces.

In a statement, the Yemeni government stressed that the only effective solution is to complete the liberation of the rest of the territory and bring it under the government control.

The government, led by President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, urged the international community to condemn Houthi attacks on places of worship, and called for an urgent international investigation into the incident.

Separately, two Houthi leaders survived an air raid on their convoy in Taez Saturday that killed eight of their guards, military and medical sources said.