Map of Saudi Arabia locating Mecca. A ballistic missile fired by Yemeni rebels was shot down late Thursday close to Mecca, the Arab military coalition fighting in Yemen said. AFP<\/p>\n
A ballistic missile fired by Yemeni rebels was shot down late Thursday close to Makka in Saudi Arabia, a month before the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Islam\u2019s holiest site, the Arab military coalition fighting in Yemen said.<\/p>\n
The missile was intercepted 69 kilometres (43 miles) south of the city in western Saudi Arabia, the coalition said in a statement, calling it \u201ca desperate attempt by Shiite Huthi rebels to disrupt Hajj\u201d, which begins at the end of August.<\/p>\n
Occasional ballistic missile attacks, as well as more frequent short-range rocket fire over the southern border, have in the past been conducted after coalition air strikes against the rebels in Yemen.<\/p>\n
It is not the first time rebels have fired in the direction of Makka.<\/p>\n
In October they launched one of their longest-range strikes against Saudi Arabia, firing a ballistic missile that was brought down near the holy city, an attack condemned by Riyadh\u2019s Gulf allies.<\/p>\n
But the new attack is thought to pose a threat ahead of Hajj, when some two million faithful from across the world will visit the site.<\/p>\n
The Huthi rebels and their allies, former members of Yemen\u2019s security forces linked to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, began retaliatory attacks against the kingdom two years ago.<\/p>\n
The Saudi-lead coalition intervened in the country in March 2015 to support President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, who says the rebels are supported by its regional arch-rival Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Map of Saudi Arabia locating Mecca. A ballistic missile fired by Yemeni rebels was shot down late Thursday close to Mecca, the Arab military coalition fighting in Yemen said. AFP A ballistic missile fired by Yemeni rebels was shot down late Thursday close to Makka in Saudi Arabia, a month before the annual Hajj pilgrimage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[706],"class_list":{"0":"post-5032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-yemens-ballistic-missile-hits-near-makka"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}