Houthis Attack Saudi Arabia: Coalition Hits Missile Plants

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has turned its air campaign against the industry behind Ansarullah’s missile fire on the kingdom, announcing on November 9 that it had destroyed a factory assembling ballistic missile components, a chemical plant mixing solid propellant and an electronics workshop assembling missile systems in territory held by the movement widely known as the Houthis. Coalition spokesman Major General Turki al-Maliki released footage of the strikes but gave no locations for the three sites and no estimate of casualties or lost production. He stated that the coalition would continue its efforts to weaken and dismantle the Houthi ballistic missile network, describing the operation as a response to repeated attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Striking the plants that build and fuel the missiles, rather than only the launchers that fire them, marks a significant widening of the coalition’s target list after more than three months of open war.

The announcement came a day after a Houthi attack on Riyadh on November 8, when debris from intercepted missiles damaged the Aramco Tower in the King Abdullah Financial District, which Saudi Arabia’s Energy Ministry described as minor damage with no injuries. Al-Maliki said at the time that air defences had intercepted two ballistic missiles fired at Riyadh and two cruise missiles aimed at the capital and the south. That attack followed the October 10 strike on King Khalid International Airport, which killed 12 people and wounded 309 according to Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority, and earlier interceptions over Medina. The coalition’s previously announced strikes had concentrated on launch platforms and ammunition depots, with its Joint Forces Command having reported on October 9 the destruction of three missile launch platforms, two days after claiming 82 military targets across the Saada, Hodeidah, al-Jawf and Marib provinces.

The Houthi side has reported a heavy civilian cost from the campaign. Anees al-Asbahi, spokesman for the Houthi-run Health Ministry, said airstrikes on homes in the village of al-Shariya, east of the capital Sanaa, on November 7 had killed 44 people, among them 21 children and 10 women, and wounded 40, and he blamed Saudi Arabia for the attack. The coalition has not commented on the al-Shariya strike, and the toll has not been independently verified. Hopes of outside reinforcement have also been tempered, with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani having stated on November 9 that Damascus had not deployed forces to fight the Houthis and had no immediate plan to do so, only days after a Saudi-Syrian defence agreement was signed in Riyadh on November 4.

The solid propellant plant is the most significant of the three targets if the coalition’s description is accurate. Solid fuelled ballistic missiles are stored ready to fire and can be launched from mobile vehicles within minutes, with no fuelling phase to betray them to aircraft or satellites, which leaves coalition aircraft little chance of striking them before launch and the MIM-104 Patriot batteries defending Saudi cities as the main line of defence. Iran has led the region in this field with missiles such as the solid fuelled Sejjil, and the ability to mix propellant inside Yemen would highlight how far the Houthis’ missile industry has moved beyond reassembling smuggled kits. The coalition did not say whether the chemical plant cast complete rocket motors or only mixed the propellant that goes into them.