Oct 21 (Reuters) – Yemen’s Houthis said that they have not launched any drones towards the Saudi holy city of Medina on Wednesday and have not conducted any military operations towards Saudi Arabia either, denying earlier comments from the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.
The comments by the Iran-aligned group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree follow the coalition saying that it had intercepted drones over Medina and the Eastern region.
Fighting between a Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s internationally recognised government and the Houthi militia, which controls the capital Sanaa, has escalated in recent weeks, becoming another front in the US-Israeli war on Iran.
The Houthis have attacked Riyadh’s international airport and state oil giant Saudi Aramco, disrupting flights and oil exports.
A Houthi missile attack on a government security forces training camp in Yemen’s Shabwa province on Tuesday killed 73 people.
The recent bout of violence is the most serious fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis since a UN-brokered truce largely halted cross-border attacks in 2022.
Yemen, one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, has been mired in a civil war since 2014 when the Houthis drove the government out of the capital, drawing Saudi-led military intervention.
(Reporting by Nayera AbdallahEditing by Hugh Lawson and David Goodman)
