For the third time in two weeks, the United Arab Emirates claim to have been targeted by a missile from the Yemeni Houthi rebels. “Air defenses intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by Houthi terrorists targeting our country”said Monday, January 31, the Emirati Ministry of Defense in a press release.
The debris of the missile fell in an unpopulated area and no casualties were reported, said the authorities of the Emirates, according to which the attack had no impact on air traffic. The ministry adds that it destroyed the Houthi missile launcher in Yemen, without specifying its location.
The Houthis have so far made no comment, but said they would issue a statement “in the next few hours” on an operation in the Emirates, who say they are “completely ready to face any threat” and take “all necessary measures to protect the United Arab Emirates from any attack”.
On January 17, a drone and missile attack killed three people in Abu Dhabi, and on January 24, two ballistic missile launches were intercepted by US forces based in the Emirati capital.
A devastating conflict
The attack coincides with Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s first official visit to Abu Dhabi since the two countries normalized relations in 2020. In a statement, the Israeli President’s office said it “would continue his visit as planned”.
The Emirates are part of a Saudi-led military coalition that has supported the government of Yemen since 2015 against the Iran-backed Houthis. The Emirates withdrew its troops from Yemen in 2019, but remains an influential player in the conflict. Houthi rebels have threatened further attacks on the United Arab Emirates, which hosts US troops and is one of the world’s biggest arms buyers.
The multiplication of Houthi attacks against the Emirates, a wealthy Gulf country which holds to its reputation as an oasis of peace in the Middle East, opens a new page in the war in Yemen that began in 2014. In more than seven years of war, all parties to the conflict have been accused of “war crimes” by United Nations (UN) experts. Implicated for multiple “burrs”the coalition recognized “errors” but accuses the rebels of using civilians as human shields.
The UN has been trying in vain for several years to put an end to this devastating conflict which, according to it, has killed 377,000 people and pushed a population of 30 million to the brink of famine in Yemen, the poorest country in the world. Arabian Peninsula. Iran denies supplying weapons to the Houthis as accused by Saudis and Americans.