Saudi missile defense stops Iranian missile fired by its proxies in Yemen
AP:
Yemen's Shiite rebels and their allies fired a ballistic missile deep into Saudi Arabia, an overnight strike that they said on Friday had targeted an international airport while the kingdom claimed that it flew toward the holy Muslim city of Mecca.The US response was a typical liberal platitude about their not being a military solution to the fight in Yemen. That statement is demonstrably false. There is clearly a military solution, it is just not one the Obama administration finds acceptable. The Obama administration appears to want Kerry to negotiate another bad deal with Iran and its proxies. The Saudis and their allies see Iran as an existential threat that they want to stop now before they get nukes allowed by Obama's bad deal.
Saudi Arabia said the missile was "intercepted and destroyed" 65 kilometers (40 miles) from Mecca, which is home to the cube-shaped Kaaba that the world's Muslims pray toward five times a day.
Angry Saudis soon denounced the missile fire online with hashtags questioning the faith of Yemen's Shiite rebels known as Houthis, as other Sunni Arab leaders in the Gulf linked the attack to Shiite power Iran.
Invoking Mecca also invigorated support for Saudi Arabia as it leads the stalemated war in the Arab world's poorest country, as well as turned attention away from those starving under a kingdom-led blockade and the civilians killed in its airstrikes.
The Saudi military said the missile, fired Thursday night from Yemen's northwestern Saada province, which borders the kingdom, caused no damage. The Saudi military has a supply of U.S.-made, surface-to-air Patriot missile batteries it previously has fired at Houthi-launched missiles.
The kingdom's military said in a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency that it immediately targeted the area where the missile was launched in airstrikes.
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