Fighter jets of Arab Coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, launched air raids against a number of military sites controlled by Houthi militias and other forces loyal to Yemen’s former President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a. Local residents reported that four air strikes by coalition fighters targeted weapons stores possessed by the insurgents in the Faj Atan area, west of the capital.
Residents of Sanaa confirmed that violent explosions rocked the western side of the capital after the raids. Coalition fighters are still flying heavily over the capital, Sanaa. Houthi militants claimed that their air defense unit managed to drop a Saudi aircraft on early Saturday, hours after the launch of a ballistic missile towards Riyadh.
According to a military source in the Arab Coalition, Saudi Arabian Air Force (RAF) on Friday evening intercepted a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis over an uninhabited area north of Al-Rayen province near the capital Riyadh. Yemen's Shiite Houthi rebels said late on Friday they had fired a ballistic missile toward Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh, but reports from Saudi Arabia said the missile had been intercepted and destroyed.
In a report by the rebel-controlled Saba news agency, Houthis claimed they had fired a "Burkan 2 ballistic missile" toward Riyadh Friday night. However, the official Saudi news agency SPA quoted a statement by Saudi-led coalition later Friday that it had intercepted and destroyed a Houthi missile in the southern Saudi province of Ar Rayn, about 200 km west of Riyadh.
The Houthi move came a day ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's first visit to Riyadh to attend a Saudi-U.S. conference on Middle East issues. The Saudi agency also reported that the coalition warplanes targeted the Houthi missile launch pad.
Residents in the Houthi-held capital Sanaa reported several air strikes by Saudi-led warplanes on the Missiles Brigades in Sanaa following Houthi declaration of firing the ballistic missile. This is the third time in nearly two months that Houthis claimed firing ballistic missiles on military targets in Saudi Arabia, but were all intercepted and destroyed without causing any casualties.
Houthi rebels ousted President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and seized control of northern Yemen in September 2014. In March 2015, in support of Hadi, Saudi Arabia led a mostly Arab military coalition to fight the Houthi rebels, who seized most of northern Yemen, including Sanaa. The war has killed more than 10,000 people, half of them civilians, and displaced over two million people, according to humanitarian agencies.
Yemeni governmental forces loyal to President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi managed to achieve notable advance in a number of areas controlled by the Houthi militias and other forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Taiz Governorate in the southern area of the country. According to sources, The government forces took control of the Mount of the Pods, the villages of Al-Mihal, Al-Qahra, Al-Thabat Al-Ahmar and Khalid Bin Al-Waleed School in Al-Qadha district of the Al-Ma'afer Directorate.
The military source revealed that government forces took control of al-Kadihah area and 5 farms north of Al-Mukha city, with air support from Arab coalition fighters. It added that Houthi militias and other forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh launched an attack initially on the positions of government forces in the area of Zahari and its surroundings, and the government forces responded to them.
It pointed out that the fighters launched more than a dozen air raids in those locations, and the air strikes killed and wounded Huthis and Saleh's forces, and the destruction of military equipments. In the city of Sayoun, east of Yemen, a security official told Anatolia that gunmen in a car shot two civilians, Salim bin Taleb and Sultan al-Sayari, killing them immediately.