NAJRAN: Six Saudi citizens were injured after a projectile launched by Yemen’s Houthi group struck a residential area in the southern Saudi city of Najran, according to Saudi authorities.
The incident also caused material damage to three homes and three vehicles, Saudi Arabia’s General Directorate of Civil Defence said in a statement reported by the Saudi Press Agency on Sunday.
Civil Defence teams responded to the scene and carried out the necessary procedures. The directorate condemned attacks targeting civilian property, describing them as a violation of international humanitarian law.
The incident comes amid heightened military tensions around Saudi Arabia’s southern border with Yemen, with the Saudi-led coalition reporting several interceptions of missiles and drones in recent days.
Coalition spokesperson Major General Turki al-Maliki said on Sunday that two ballistic missiles launched by the Houthis towards Khamis Mushait in southwestern Saudi Arabia had been intercepted and destroyed. Earlier, Saudi authorities issued potential-danger alerts in Riyadh, Abha and Khamis Mushait before announcing that the threat had passed.
The coalition also reported intercepting four drones over the Riyadh region, the Eastern Province and southern Saudi Arabia on Saturday. It released footage that it said showed strikes against two ballistic missile launchers in Yemen’s Saada region.
Separately, the coalition announced that a reconnaissance AH-6i helicopter had crashed in the Najran region, killing both crew members. According to al-Maliki, the aircraft crashed because of a technical malfunction in an area under the jurisdiction of the Saudi National Guard Ministry.
However, Yemen’s Houthi group claimed that it had shot down a Saudi military helicopter near Najran. The group released footage it said showed a missile striking an AH-6i helicopter, but the video did not clearly establish what happened. Reuters said it could not immediately verify the claim, and Saudi authorities had not immediately commented on the Houthi account.
The competing accounts came after Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree claimed on Saturday that the group had shot down a Saudi Apache helicopter near Najran. It remained unclear whether the claim referred to the same incident.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s presidency announced that Cairo would provide Saudi Arabia with all necessary and possible support to protect its security and stability.
