06 June 2015

Russian missiles? Bah


al-Jazeera has an article about the war inside Saudi Arabia:
Saudi Arabia has said it has shot down a Scud missile fired into the kingdom by Houthi fighters and forces allied to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former Yemeni president.
A coalition of Arab states has been bombing the Iranian-allied Houthis for more than two months in an attempt to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who has fled to Saudi Arabia.
About two thousand people have been killed and half a million displaced by the fighting.
"At 2:45 am on Saturday morning, the Houthi militias and ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh launched a Scud missile in the direction of Khamees al-Mushait, and praise be to Allah, the Royal Saudi air defenses blocked it with a Patriot missile," a statement by the leadership of the Saudi-led joint Arab military coalition said.
The statement came just hours after Saudi Arabia said its army had repelled an offensive by Saleh forces, backed by Houthi fighters, on its Jizan province, which borders Yemen, according to state media.
Dozens of armed men, believed to belong to Republican Guard units loyal to Saleh, died in the attack, which the Saudi security sources said was the biggest since the conflict in Yemen began. The Saudi armed forces said in a statement that four of their soldiers had died of injuries sustained during the attack. "The Armed Forces repelled the offence which was aiming to penetrate the border, in an attempt to achieve... a moral victory to compensate the casualties among the aggressors' ranks," the Saudi statement said.
The fighting is believed to have started when units of soldiers loyal to Saleh and Houthi fighters tried to infiltrate the border at al-Khouba. The rebels launched a number of rockets at Saudi military positions, before the Saudi army retaliated with artillery shelling and air support from Apache helicopter gunships. Houthi reinforcements on the Yemeni side of the border were also targeted during the retaliation.
The rebel-aligned al Masirah TV aired video purporting to show fighters moving towards Saudi watchtowers and firing rockets. Elsewhere, the coalition carried out air strikes in the capital, Sana'a, and Ibb city, targeting positions of the Houthi and its allies.
Rebel military positions were also hit in Dhi Naem district in Bayda province and Ataq city in Shabwa province.
Earlier, there were violent clashes in the southern port city of Aden between Houthis and soldiers loyal to Hadi. Fighting also broke out in the city of Taiz, with popular resistance committee forces battling tthe Houthis. The fighters reportedly blew up a home in the city where Houthi fighters had been gathering.
The UN announced that talks to end the conflict, including the Houthis, would begin in the Swiss city of Geneva on 14 June 2015.
Rico says the place is coming unwrapped... (And, not to gloat overmuch, but you'll note the American Patriot missile took out the Russian Scud.)

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