Saudi-led planes bomb Sanaa airport to stop Iranian plane landing

Jets from a Saudi-led alliance destroyed the runway of Yemen’s Sanaa airport on Tuesday to prevent an Iranian plane from landing there, Saudi Arabia said, as fighting across the country killed at least 30 people. Yemeni Vice President Khaled Bahah had called on the Houthis on Monday to heed a U.N. Security Council demand for an end to fighting, which the Red Cross says has pushed Yemen into a humanitarian catastrophe. Houthis seized the capital Sanaa last September, demanding a more inclusive government and crackdown on graft.

The airport was bombed after an Iranian aircraft refused to coordinate with the coalition and the pilot ignored orders to turn back.

Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri

An official at the Yemeni civil aviation authority said the runway was targeted by 20 sorties that destroyed both the take-off and landing runways. A civil aviation official said the airport at the Red Sea city of Hodeidah had also been bombed, but appeared to be still operational. Officials said aid flights would be diverted to Hodeidah until Sanaa airport is repaired. As the civil war rages on and the impoverished country sinks deeper into a humanitarian emergency, Yemenis warn that it will get ever harder to restore credible central state authority, raising the risk to nearby oil shipping lanes.

The brothers in Ansarullah are called on to fear God … and to stop their war on the cities.

Saudi Arabia on Monday, Vice President Bahah

Sanaa Middle East