Yemen's Houthi rebels said on Tuesday they launched a bomb-laden drone targeting an airport in Saudi Arabia that contains a military base, an attack that was acknowledged by the kingdom as Middle East tensions remain high between Iran and the U.S.
The attack on Najran comes as Iran quadrupled its uranium-enrichment production capacity amid tensions with the U.S. over Tehran's atomic program, nuclear officials said on Monday and just after U.S. President Donald Trump and Iran's foreign minister traded threats and taunts on Twitter.
Iranian officials made a point to stress that the uranium would be enriched only to the 3.67% limit set under the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, making it usable for a power plant but far below what is needed for an atomic weapon.
But by increasing production, Iran soon will exceed the stockpile limitations set by the accord. Tehran has set a July 7 deadline for Europe to set new terms for the deal, or it will enrich closer to weapons-grade levels in a Middle East that is already on edge. The Trump administration has deployed bombers and an aircraft carrier to the region over still-unspecified threats from Iran.
In the drone attack, the Houthi's Al-Masirah satellite news channel said early Tuesday they targeted the airport in Najran with a Qasef-2K drone, striking an "arms depot" there. Najran, 830 kilometers (520 miles) southwest of Riyadh, is right on the Saudi border with Yemen and has repeatedly been targeted by the Iranian-allied Houthis.
A statement earlier Tuesday on the state-run Saudi Press Agency quoted Saudi-led coalition spokesman Col. Turki al-Maliki as saying the Houthis "had tried to target" a civilian site in Najran, without elaborating. It was not clear if there were any injuries.
Al-Maliki warned there would be a "strong deterrent" to such attacks and described the Houthis as the "terrorist militias of Iran." Such Houthi attacks in the past have sparked rounds of Saudi-led airstrikes on Yemen, which have been widely criticized for killing civilians.
Civilian airports throughout the Middle East often host military bases.
Last year, The New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence analysts based in Najran were assisting the Saudis and a U.S. Army Green Berets deployment on the border. The Pentagon and the U.S. military's Central Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Last week, the Houthis launched a coordinated drone attack on a Saudi oil pipeline amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S.
Earlier this month, officials in the United Arab Emirates alleged that four oil tankers were sabotaged, and U.S. diplomats relayed a warning that commercial airlines could be misidentified by Iran and attacked, something dismissed by Tehran.
