Saudi-led coalition warns of ´painful´ response over Yemen drones

RIYADH: A Saudi-led coalition battling Yemen´s Huthi rebels warned them Monday of a "painful" response if they mounted new attacks on Saudi Arabia using what it said were Iran-supplied drones.

Riyadh said last week it had shot down two drones in the south of the kingdom as well as intercepting ballistic missiles fired from rebel-held parts of Yemen, the latest in a series of similar incidents.

"If the Huthis continue targeting industrial or residential facilities, the response will be hard and painful," said coalition spokesman Turki al-Malki, displaying what he claimed were remnants of the intercepted aircraft.

But in a sign of defiance, the rebels late Monday fired a new missile towards southern Najran province, which was intercepted by Saudi air defence, the kingdom´s state-run Al-Ekhbariya TV reported.

Malki told reporters in the eastern city of Al-Khobar that the airport of rebel-held capital Sanaa was used as a military base to orchestrate the drone strike.

The Saudi-backed Yemeni government last week said the drones were "made in Iran", adding that Yemen´s military did not possess such aircraft and it was "impossible to manufacture them locally".

Iran backs the Huthis, who seized the capital Sanaa in 2014, prompting a Saudi-led military coalition to intervene against the rebels the following year.

But Tehran has repeatedly denied arming the rebels, which would violate a United Nations weapons embargo slapped on Yemen in 2015.

Saudi Arabia in March 2015 launched a coalition of Arab states fighting to roll back the Huthis in Yemen and restore the country´s internationally recognised government to power.

Nearly 10,000 people have since been killed in Yemen´s conflict, in what the United Nations has called the world´s worst humanitarian crisis.