On November 29, the Yemeni Missile Force [loyal to the Houthis] announced that it had launched a Badir-1P guided artillery rocket at a gathering of Saudi-led coalition troops on the western coast of Yemen.
“The rocket hit its target accurately,” the al-Masirah TV quoted a source in the Yemeni Missile Force as saying.
According to experts, the Badir-1Pis an INS\GPS guided copy of the Badir-1 solid fuel artillery rocket. The Badir-1 family is derived from the Iranian-made Fajir-4 rocket.
A spokesman of the Saudi-led coalition, Colonel Turki al-Malki, denied the Yemeni Missile Force’s claims and said that coalition warplanes were able to destroy the rocket launcher in the northern Yemeni province of Saada only minutes before the launch operation. According to Col. al-Malki, the target of the rocket was southern Saudi Arabia and not the western Yemeni coast.
“The coalition denies the claims of the Houthi terrorist militia, which is pushing its fighters and supporters to a losing battle … these lies and tricks will not convince its sympathizers,” the UAE-based al-Arabiya TV quoted al-Arabiya as saying.
This was the first time the Saudi-led coalition was able to foil a Houthi rocket attack. If such incidents repeat, this will pose a serious challenge to the Houthis, which rely on the Yemeni Missile Force as one of the main tools to deter the coalition.
