The Houthis target the UAE and Saudi Arabia with ballistic missiles and threaten to expand operations

 During the past hours, the Houthis launched ballistic missiles towards Abu Dhabi and Saudi areas that were intercepted by air defenses, at the beginning of a second week of escalation, and threatened to expand their operations in the UAE, a wealthy country that is seen as an oasis of calm in a turbulent region.

The UAE is participating in a Saudi-led military coalition that supports government forces in Yemen against the Houthis.  And it was subjected to the first confirmed attack by the Houthis on its territory last Monday, when drones and missiles targeted Abu Dhabi, killing three people.  The Houthis often target Saudi territory with missile attacks.

 After targeting the UAE, the coalition intensified its air raids on areas under the control of the Houthis in Yemen, which led to dozens of casualties, destruction and internet outages.  And a raid on a prison in Saada, the stronghold of the Houthis, in the north of the country, left at least seventy people dead and more than a hundred wounded.  But the coalition denied that it carried out.

 On Monday, the UAE announced the interception of two ballistic missiles in its airspace, which it said had been launched by the Houthis towards its territory, according to what the state news agency quoted the Ministry of Defense as saying.

 The ministry indicated that the destruction of the two missiles did not result in "human losses", and that "the remnants of the intercepted and destroyed ballistic missiles fell in separate areas around the Emirate of Abu Dhabi."

 On Sunday evening, Saudi Arabia announced that two people were injured when a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis fell on Jizan in the south of the kingdom.  Later, the coalition said that the Saudi defenses had destroyed a "ballistic missile fired towards Dhahran" in the south of the kingdom.

 Yahya Saree, a military spokesman for the Iran-backed Houthi Ansar Allah movement, said that the movement carried out a "widespread military operation" targeting "the Saudi and Emirati depths", "in response to the escalation of aggression" against Yemen.

 "The UAE must stop blatant interference in Yemeni affairs, otherwise our response will continue," Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdel Salam said in television interviews, warning that "the UAE will target all its military and economic institutions, especially its weaknesses."

 He also considered that the classification of "Ansar Allah as a terrorist organization has no value and will never affect the course of the battle," after the UAE demanded Washington return the Houthis to the list of terrorist organizations.

escalation by escalation

 Saree, in turn, stressed the "readiness" of the Houthis "to expand their operations during the next stage and confront the escalation with escalation," reiterating his call "for foreign companies and investors in the UAE to leave, as it has become an unsafe country and is constantly exposed to targeting as long as it continues its aggression and siege of the Yemeni people."

 The UAE withdrew the majority of its forces from Yemen in 2019, but it is still training and supporting Yemeni forces that were recently able to regain territory from the Houthis, which prompted the Houthis to escalate by attacking Abu Dhabi, according to analysts.

 For its part, the UAE Ministry of Defense said that it "is ready and ready to deal with any threats, and that it is taking all necessary measures to protect the state from all attacks."

The ministry announced the "success" of an F-16 fighter jet at 04:10 Yemen time (010 GMT) in "destroying the ballistic missile launcher" that fired the two missiles at Abu Dhabi.

 She indicated that the platform from which the two missiles were launched was in Al-Jawf in northern Yemen, without specifying whether the plane that carried out the operation was an Emirati.

 In Riyadh, the Saudi Foreign Ministry stressed in a statement "the urgent need for the international community to act to put an end to this aggressive behavior."

 In a statement, the Bahraini Foreign Ministry condemned the "treacherous attacks launched by the terrorist Houthi militia," while the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry expressed "the State of Kuwait's strong condemnation and denunciation of the cowardly terrorist attacks."

 The US Embassy reminds all US citizens in the UAE to "maintain a high level of security awareness."

The Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Hussein Ibrahim Taha, also condemned the "perseverance of the Houthi militia", describing the attacks as "criminal" behavior.

 'unprovoked raid'

 After last week's attack, the UAE announced the suspension of flying operations for owners, practitioners and enthusiasts of drones of all shapes and sizes for a month.

 Meanwhile, in Saada, searches for bodies under the rubble continue after the Friday raid, while hospitals are dealing with difficulty with the large number of wounded.

 Doctors Without Borders said on Sunday there was "no way to deny" what it called an "unprovoked air strike".

 "The strike is the latest in a long series of unprovoked air strikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition on places such as schools, hospitals, markets, wedding parties and prisons," Ahmed Mahat, head of the Doctors Without Borders mission in Yemen, said in a statement.