File photo of Dammam city
Riyadh/Dubai/Washington DC: Two children were injured and 14 residential houses sustained slight damages when hit by shrapnels in Saudi Arabian city of Dammam after the Coalition Forces’ Air Defence intercepted and destroyed three ballistic missiles and bomb-laden drones, today.
The Saudi Defence Ministry spokesperson Brigadier General Turki al-Maliki claimed in a statement that the missiles and drones, which were heading towards the cities of Jazan and Najran, were launched by the Yemen based Houthi militia, which has the backing of Iran.
While accusing Houthi militia of the “barbaric and irresponsible” act, Al-Maliki said, “This reflects the reality of the conduct of military operations on the ground, the deterioration of the militia’s position on the fronts, and its loss of important field leaders”.
Saudi Arabia vowed to take the necessary and deterrent measures to protect its lands and capabilities and stop such hostile and cross-border attacks to protect civilians and civilian objects in accordance with international humanitarian law and its customary rules. It has maintained that the coalition operations have left more than twenty thousand Houthi terrorists dead and wounded so far this year.
Earlier on August 31, 2021 too, the Houthi Militia had targeted Abha airport in Saudi Arabia but the drone was intercepted by the Arab Coalition. However, eight persons were were injured in the attack.
Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) strongly condemned the “terrorist Houthi militias’ attempts to attack civilians and civil objects in Saudi Arabia.
In a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MoFAIC), the UAE reiterated that these systematic terror attacks by the Houthis reflect their blatant disregard for the international community and all international laws and norms.
The Ministry urged the international community to take an immediate and decisive stance to stop these recurrent acts, which target critical infrastructure and threaten the security and stability of the Kingdom, as well as global energy supplies.
It also stressed that the recurrent threat of these attacks in recent days is a grave escalation that represents new evidence of these militias’ attempts to undermine security and stability in the region.
The UAE renewed its full solidarity with Saudi Arabia over these subversive terrorist attacks and reiterated its stance against all threats to the Kingdom’s security and stability. The UAE also reiterated its support for all measures taken by Saudi authorities to maintain the safety and security of citizens and residents.
MoFAIC also stressed that the security of the UAE and that of Saudi Arabia are indivisible and that any threat facing the Kingdom is considered a threat to the security and stability of the UAE.
The Saudi-led military coalition backs forces of the ousted government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi fighting the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen. Because of ongoing military operations inside Yemen, Hadi currently spends much of his time in exile in Saudi Arabia.
On August 30, 2021,the Saudi Ministry of Foreign had condemned the Houthi Militia for their attack on the Al-Anad military base in Yemen’s Lahj province, which resulted in a number of deaths and injuries.
While so far the Houthis have not taken any responsibility of today’s missile attack, it has come just a couple of days after the USA imposed fresh sanctions on “Iranian intelligence affiliates targeting dissidents abroad”.
It may be mentioned that in another development, concerning Iran, on September 3, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had designated four Iranian “intelligence operatives”, who it claimed, had targeted a U.S. citizen in the United States and Iranian dissidents in other countries as part of a wide-ranging campaign to silence critics of the Iranian government.
“Senior intelligence official Alireza Shahvaroghi Farahani led a network that plotted the kidnapping of a U.S. journalist and human rights activist, a failed plot that led to the indictment of members of the network in late July. Consistent with the well-documented role of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) in domestic repression, this operation demonstrates the pernicious role of Iran’s intelligence apparatus in targeting Iranians abroad, to include brazen attempts to return dissidents to Iran,” the US Treasury Office had stated.
“The United States will continue to oppose and hold accountable governments that resort to transnational repression, whether to target dissidents, journalists, or opposition leaders. These actions threaten the rules-based international order and undermine collective peace and security,” the US Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken had stated then. The Director of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, Andrea M. Gacki, had claimed, “The Iranian government’s kidnapping plot is another example of its continued attempt to silence critical voices, wherever they may be…Targeting dissidents abroad demonstrates that the government’s repression extends far beyond Iran’s borders.”
– global bihari bureau
