Yemen Houthis say missile fired at Saudi airport as retaliation

Yemen's Houthi forces said they fired a long-range ballistic missile at the airport of Abha of the Saudi province of Asir on Wednesday night, Houthis said in a statement carried by state Saba news agency.

Houthis said the "missile attack came as a retaliatory attack to revenge the Saudi air strike on a funeral house north of the capital Sanaa few hours ago."

On Wednesday afternoon, the Saudi-led coalition killed at least 11 women in an air strike on a funeral house in north of Sanaa, a medic and security official said.

"Eleven women were killed and about ten others, also women, were critically wounded when the air strike hit a funeral in Shira area in Arhab district," the medic told Xinhua by phone.

The security official said the air strike took place at 4 p.m. local time (GMT 1300), when women began arriving at the house where the funeral was held, about 30 km north of Sanaa.

Residents were shocked at the air attack. The targeted funeral house was completely destroyed and scores of adjacent homes were damaged.

This is the latest in a series of air strikes hitting Yemeni civilians since the civil war began in 2015.

Since March 2015, the coalition has been fighting the dominant Houthi rebels, who seized most of northern Yemen including the capital Sanaa, to restore power to the expelled but internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The war has killed more than 10,000 people, half of them civilians, and displaced over two millions, according to humanitarian agencies. Endit