DUBAI, United Arab Emirates —
The United Arab Emirates and the U.S. navy intercepted two ballistic missiles fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels within the skies over Abu Dhabi early Monday, authorities stated, the second assault in per week that focused the Emirati capital.
The missile fireplace additional escalates tensions throughout the Persian Gulf, which beforehand had seen a sequence of assaults close to — however by no means indisputably on — Emirati soil. It comes throughout Yemen’s years-long conflict and the collapse of Iran’s nuclear cope with world powers. U.S. troops at Al Dhafra Air Base in Abu Dhabi took shelter in bunkers throughout the assault and fired again with their very own Patriot missiles.
The assaults threaten the business-friendly, tourism-focused efforts of the Emirates, a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula. For years, the nation has marketed itself as a protected nook of an in any other case harmful neighborhood.
Movies on social media confirmed the sky over Abu Dhabi lighting up earlier than daybreak Monday with what gave the impression to be interceptor missiles racing into the clouds to focus on the incoming fireplace. Two explosions later thundered via the town. The footage within the movies corresponded to recognized options of Abu Dhabi.
The state-run WAM information company stated that missile fragments fell harmlessly over Abu Dhabi.
The UAE is “able to cope with any threats” and to take “all obligatory measures to guard the state from all assaults,” WAM quoted the Emirati Protection Ministry as saying.
Navy Capt. Invoice City, spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, in an announcement acknowledged that the help of American Patriot missile batteries prevented the Houthi missiles from placing targets in Abu Dhabi. Movies on social media prompt outgoing interceptor fireplace got here from the bottom.
“The mixed efforts efficiently prevented each missiles from impacting the bottom,” City stated.
The missile fireplace disrupted site visitors into Abu Dhabi Worldwide Airport, dwelling to the long-haul provider Etihad, for about an hour after the assault.
Houthi navy spokesman Yehia Sarei claimed the assault in a televised assertion, saying the rebels focused the UAE with each Zulfiqar ballistic missiles and drones, together with Al Dhafra Air Base. He warned that the UAE would proceed to be a goal “so long as assaults on the Yemeni individuals proceed.”
“We warn overseas corporations and traders to depart the Emirates!” Sarei shouted from a podium. “This has change into an unsafe nation!”
The Dubai Monetary Market closed down practically 2% after the assault, with practically each firm buying and selling down. The Abu Dhabi Securities Trade additionally fell barely.
Al Dhafra, which hosts each American and British forces, is dwelling to the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing and has had armed drones and F-35 stealth fighters stationed there.
The U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi later issued a safety alert to Individuals residing within the UAE, warning them to “preserve a excessive stage of safety consciousness.” The alert included directions on how to deal with missile assaults, one thing beforehand exceptional within the UAE, a vacationer vacation spot dwelling to skyscraper-studded Dubai and its long-haul provider, Emirates.
“If all these assaults find yourself occurring on a weekly foundation as they do in Saudi Arabia … that can shift the notion of the menace panorama within the UAE,” stated Torbjorn Soltvedt, an analyst with danger consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. “The priority is now the contagion goes to be broader if we begin to see assaults towards civilian infrastructure.”
The Emirati Protection Ministry later tweeted a black-and-white video that it stated confirmed an F-16 placing the ballistic missile launcher used within the Abu Dhabi assault. The ministry recognized the location as being close to Jawaf, a Yemeni province round 870 miles southwest of Abu Dhabi.
The state-linked Nationwide newspaper in Abu Dhabi recognized the F-16 as an Emirati jetfighter, elevating the query of how immediately concerned the UAE is within the struggle in Yemen after withdrawing most of its floor forces in 2019. The Emiratis proceed to again militias on the bottom, together with the Giants Brigade, which has made advances towards the Houthis in current weeks.
The Zulfiqar ballistic missile, believed to have a variety of about 930 miles, is modeled after the Iranian Qiam missile, in line with a report by the Worldwide Institute for Strategic Research. Iran denies immediately arming the Houthis, although United Nations specialists, Western nations and analysts have linked weapons within the rebels’ arsenal to Tehran.
“It’s received the traditional parts of the coercive technique,” stated Tim Wright, a analysis analyst at IISS. “On this case, it’s to make them again down on their help” of the Giants Brigade.
The assault got here per week after Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed an assault on the Emirati capital concentrating on the airport and an Abu Dhabi Nationwide Oil Co. gasoline depot within the Mussafah neighborhood with drones and cruise missiles. That assault on the gasoline depot killed three individuals and wounded six others.
New high-resolution satellite tv for pc pictures obtained by the Related Press from Planet Labs PBC confirmed restore work nonetheless ongoing on the gasoline depot Saturday. Emirati officers haven't launched photos of the attacked websites, nor allowed journalists to see them.
In current days, a Saudi-led coalition that the UAE backs unleashed punishing airstrikes concentrating on Yemen, knocking the Arab world’s poorest nation off the web and killing greater than 80 individuals at a detention middle.
The Houthis threatened revenge towards the Emirates and Saudi Arabia. On Sunday, the Saudi-led coalition stated a Houthi-launched ballistic missile landed in an industrial space in Jizan, Saudi Arabia. The missile tore a deep crater within the floor, tv video confirmed, and barely wounded two foreigners of Bangladeshi and Sudanese nationality.
The hard-line Iranian day by day newspaper Kayhan, whose editor in chief was appointed by Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, revealed a front-page article Sunday quoting Houthi officers as saying that the UAE could be attacked once more. The story’s headline stated: “Evacuate Emirati business towers.”
In 2017, the newspaper confronted a two-day publication ban after it ran a headline saying Dubai was the “subsequent goal” for the Houthis.
Related Press writers Lolita C. Baldor in Washington; Isabel DeBre, Malak Harb and Lujain Jo in Dubai; Amir Vahdat in Tehran; and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.
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