Saudi Coalition Intercepts Yemen Drones, Blames U.S. Policy

(Bloomberg) -- A Saudi-led military coalition said it shot down armed drones fired by Yemen rebels toward the kingdom and suggested a U.S. decision to revoke the insurgents’ terrorist designation has fueled rising attacks.

The coalition destroyed at least eight drones, Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya television said, without giving further details of their locations. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels, which the coalition has been battling for six years, have recently stepped up assaults on neighboring Saudi Arabia. Last week, the rebels claimed a hit on a Saudi Aramco fuel depot in Jeddah with a cruise missile.

Yemen’s Houthis Claim Strike on Saudi Base, Aramco Oil Depot (2)

“The Houthis’ removal from the list of terror groups was interpreted in a hostile manner by the militia,” the coalition was cited as saying by Saudi state-run Ekhbariya TV on Twitter. Progress by the Yemeni army and tribes against the Houthis in resource-rich Marib, east of the capital Sana’a, provoked the rising violence, it added.

It was not clear how much damage has been caused by the recently claimed Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia. Such assaults rarely result in extensive damage but their frequency has created unease in the Gulf, a region key to global oil production.

The U.S. said last month it would remove terrorist designations on the Houthis put in place near the end of the Trump administration after the United Nations cited the risk of famine in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest nation.

The Houthis have been fighting Yemen’s United Nations-recognized government since 2014 and control Sana’a, in a conflict the UN says has caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

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