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The Saudi-led military coalition said Thursday it shot down a missile fired by Yemen's Shiite Huthi rebels who said they targeted storage facilities of the kingdom's oil giant Aramco.
"The missile fired at the town of Jizan was intercepted and destroyed" late Wednesday, said coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki.
"The debris fell on residential areas and we have no report of human losses or material damage," he said.
Aramco said its facilities in Jizan, in southwestern Saudi Arabia, were "intact" and operating normally, after pictures were posted on social media of a fire sparked by a missile attack.
The Huthi rebels said on their Al-Masirah television channel they had targeted Aramco storage tanks in Jizan.
Saudi Arabia leads a regional military coalition allied with Yemen's embattled government in a war against the Iran-backed Huthis, who have ramped up their attacks on the kingdom.
An Egyptian labourer was killed by falling debris from a March 25 missile attack on Riyadh.
In Yemen, nearly 10,000 people been killed since 2015 when the Saudi-led alliance joined the war in its impoverished neighbour. The country now stands on the brink of famine.
Saudi-led alliance turns focus on north Yemen rebel zone
Aden (AFP) April 5, 2018 -
The battle for the Yemeni province of Saada is heating up, military leaders said Thursday, as a Saudi-led alliance turns its focus on the rebel bastion used to fire missiles at the kingdom.
Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels have launched a string of ballistic missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, which shares a border with the war-torn country, from the northern province.
In the latest attack, the coalition said it shot down a missile late Wednesday fired by the Huthis who said they targeted storage tanks of Saudi oil giant Aramco in the border province of Jizan.
Hundreds of soldiers from Saudi Arabia and Sudan, both allied with the government in its war against the rebels, have arrived in the north to reinforce Yemen's troops deployed around Saada, Yemeni military officials said.
Prime Minister Ahmed Ben Dagher hailed the operation as "the end of Iran's confessional plans for Yemen, executed by its Huthi allies".
The rebels say their missile attacks on Saudi Arabia are retaliation for air raids by the Riyadh-led military coalition.
Both the coalition and the United States -- a key ally of Saudi Arabia -- have accused Iran of arming the Huthi rebels.
Tehran denies sending military supplies to the insurgents but has openly said it supports the Huthis' fight in Yemen.
According to sources in the Yemeni army, the government alliance has advanced "several kilometres" towards the town of Saada, capital of the province of the same name, since the reinforcements arrived.
The embattled government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi was driven out of Yemen's capital in 2014 by the Huthis, who control Sanaa and much of northern Yemen.
The coalition led by mainly Sunni Saudi Arabia has since struggled to close in on rebel strongholds, including Maarib -- a key province in central Yemen -- and Hodeida, the country's largest port.
Nearly 10,000 people have been killed since the coalition joined the Yemen war in 2015, triggering what the United Nations has called the world's largest humanitarian crisis.
Rights groups have warned that both the coalition and rebels are potentially guilty of war crimes. The UN last year blacklisted the coalition for the maiming and killing of children.
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