DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates and the U. S. military intercepted two ballistic missiles fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels over the Abu Dhabi sky Monday morning, the government said, at the time of the week-long attack on the Emirati capital.
The missile launches are further exacerbating tensions in the Persian Gulf, which in the past had witnessed a series of attacks near Emirati soil, but never definitively in it. This comes after years of war in Yemen and the collapse of Iran’s nuclear deal with the world. Powers. Troops at the capital’s Al-Dhafra airbase took refuge in bunkers in the attack and responded with their own Patriot missiles.
The attacks threaten the efforts of the Emirates, a federation of seven emirates on the Arabian Peninsula that is also home to Dubai. neighborhood.
Videos on social media showed the sky over Abu Dhabi light up before dawn Monday, with what appeared to be interceptor missiles racing into the clouds to target the incoming fire. Two explosions later thundered through the city. The videos corresponded to known features of Abu Dhabi.
The state-run WAM news agency said that missile fragments fell harmlessly over Abu Dhabi.
The Emirates is “ready to deal with any threats and … it takes all necessary measures to protect the state from all attacks,” WAM quoted the UAE Defense Ministry as saying.
Navy Capt. Bill Urban, spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, in a statement acknowledged the assistance of American Patriot missile batteries prevented the Houthi missiles from striking targets in Abu Dhabi. Videos on social media suggested outgoing interceptor fire came from the base.
“The combined efforts successfully prevented both missiles from impacting the base,” Urban said.
The missile launch disrupted Abu Dhabi International Airport, home of long-distance carrier Etihad, for about an hour after the attack.
Houthi army spokesman Yehia Sarei claimed responsibility for the attack in a televised statement, saying the rebels had targeted several sites in the UAE with Zulfiqar ballistic missiles and drones, adding the Al-Dhafra airbase. He warned that the UAE would remain a target “as long as attacks on Yemenis continue. “
“We warn foreign corporations and investors to leave the Emirates!” shouted Sarei from a podium. “You have a harmful country!”
Dubai’s money market closed just 2% after the attack, with almost all businesses down. The Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange also fell slightly.
In Al-Dhafra, which houses U. S. and British forces, U. S. troops took refuge in bunkers during the attack, the U. S. Air Force’s Middle East Command said. U. S. -35 stealth fighters stationed there.
The U. S. Embassy The U. S. department of state in Abu Dhabi then issued a security alert for Americans living in the Uae, warning citizens to “maintain a high point of security awareness. “The alert included commands on how to deal with missile strikes, something unprecedented in the United States. United Arab Emirates, a tourist destination that is home to Dubai and its long-haul airline Emirates.
“If those types of attacks end weekly as is the case in Saudi Arabia . . . will replace the belief of the threat landscape in the UAE,” said Torbjorn Soltvedt, an analyst at threat consultancy Vethreat Maplecroft. the fear now is that the contagion will be wider if we start to see attacks on civilian infrastructure. “
The UAE’s Defense Ministry then tweeted a black-and-white video that said it showed an F-16 hitting the ballistic missile launcher used in the Abu Dhabi attack. The Defense Ministry knew it was near al-Jawaf, a Yemeni province about 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) southwest of Abu Dhabi.
Abu Dhabi’s state-linked newspaper The National called the F-16 Emirati, adding to the factor of the UAE’s direct involvement in the fighting after most of its ground forces withdrew in 2019. , which has made advances opposed to the Houthis in recent weeks.
The Zulfiqar ballistic missile, believed to be diversity of 1,500 kilometers (930 miles), is modeled after Iran’s Qiam missile, according to a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Iran denies directly arming the Houthis, United Nations experts, Western nations and analysts have linked the weapons in the rebels’ arsenal to Tehran.
“They’re the old elements of coercive strategy,” said Tim Wright, a research analyst at IISS. “In this case, it is for them to back down in their support” for the Giant Brigade.
The attack came a week after Yemen’s Houthi rebels took over an attack on the Emirati capital that targeted the airport and a fuel depot of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. in the community of Mussafah with drones and cruise missiles. The attack on the fuel tank left another 3 people dead and six injured.
New high-resolution satellite photographs received through The Associated Press of Planet Labs PBC showed repaired paints still in progress at the fuel tank on Saturday. Emirati officials published photographs of the attacked sites, and did not allow journalists to see them.
In recent days, a Saudi-led coalition backed by EMIRATI has unleashed punitive airstrikes on Yemen, shutting down the Arab world’s poorest country and killing more than 80 people in a detention center.
The Houthis had threatened revenge on the Emirates and Saudi Arabia for the attacks. On Sunday, the Saudi-led coalition said a ballistic missile introduced through the Houthis had landed in a commercial area in Jizan, Saudi Arabia. The missile dug deep crater on the ground, according to television footage, and wounded two foreigners of Bangladeshi and Sudanese nationality.
Iran’s radical daily Kayhan, whose editor-in-chief was appointed through Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, published a front-page article last Sunday citing Houthi officials who said the UAE would be targeted with a headline: “Evacuate companies. towers of the Emirates”.
In 2017, the newspaper faced a two-day publishing ban after publishing a headline that said Dubai, the Houthis’ “next target. “
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Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor in Washington; Isabel DeBre, Malak Harb and Lujain Jo in Dubai; Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.
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