LONDON/RIYADH: British fighter planes will be deployed to help Saudi Arabia defend itself against increasing attacks from Yemen's Houthi rebels, the UK government announced on Tuesday. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the deployment formed part of "additional defensive military support" to Riyadh.
"The UK will fly defensive counter air missions to support the protection of Saudi cities and critical national infrastructure against aerial attack, using Royal Air Force (RAF) Typhoon fighter jets," the MoD said in a statement. "These aircraft will operate in a defensive role and will not conduct offensive strikes against the Houthis."
Britain will also deploy a military transport aircraft "to support the movement of defence material within Saudi Arabia alongside UK military advisers to support Saudi staff officers," the statement added. "The continuing attacks from the Houthis on our ally Saudi Arabia are absolutely despicable," said Defence Minister Wes Streeting.
"The targeting of the airport in Riyadh in particular shows the lengths the Houthis are going to, to escalate the situation in the region," he added. The Saudi capital's international airport has been targeted by strikes 20 times since the beginning of the month, with a recent attack killing 13 people and wounding more than 300.
Saudi forces said they had intercepted a Houthi ballistic missile aimed at the kingdom's capital. The kingdom "intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the terrorist Houthi militia towards Riyadh," said Turki Al-Malki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition.
The Saudi civil defence said in a statement on X: "A warning has been issued by the National Early Warning Platform in Riyadh City to alert for a potential danger." But the alert was lifted a few minutes later, with the civil defence saying "the danger has passed." Later in the evening, Al-Malki reported a drone interception in the Riyadh area.
Local Yemeni authorities raised the death toll from a Houthi strike a day earlier on a military camp belonging to government forces to 73. The death toll from Monday's strike on the camp in the energy-rich Shabwa province "increased to 73 martyrs, while search and follow-up efforts are ongoing to discover the fate of 14 missing people," provincial authorities said.
More than 250,000 people have been internally displaced in Yemen since the civil war reignited, the United Nations said Tuesday. "UNHCR is obviously deeply concerned about the escalating displacement situation," Matthew Saltmarsh, spokesman for the UN refugee agency, told a press conference in Geneva.
"The numbers displaced have now reached over 250,000. These are people who have been internally displaced in Yemen between August 1 and October 17." Around half of those newly displaced are being hosted in Taiz, Yemen's third largest city, which Houthi fighters have encircled since early October.