JIZAN, Saudi Arabia — Huthi fire from
Yemen this month on the UAE, traditionally a haven of security in a turbulent
Middle East, stirred alarm at home and abroad, but for many Saudis it's nothing
new.
اضافة اعلان
In the Jizan region of southwestern Saudi
Arabia, the local population has had to live for years with the threat of
sometimes deadly cross-border fire by the Iran-backed
Huthi rebels.
Saudi defenses have intercepted most of the
Huthi missiles and drones targeting airports and oil infrastructure in
retaliation for air strikes since 2015 in support of Yemen's embattled
government by a Saudi-led Arab military coalition.
But the ones that made it through have
caused casualties and damage.
"The first two or three times it was
strange because that kind of thing doesn't happen in
Saudi Arabia. But it's
become a normal thing," said a Jizan resident, a woman in her 30s clad in
a black abaya robe, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the
subject inside the conservative Gulf kingdom.
Thunderous blasts have "rocked the
house", she told AFP. "After our scare from the noise, we return to
our normal lives as if nothing happened."
'We learnt to sleep peacefully'
Two people were killed and seven wounded in
late December in the first deadly Huthi-claimed strike in more than three years
on Jizan, the most frequent target of attacks inside the oil-rich country.
Jizan remains a tranquil
Red Sea coastal
region where families picnic on the beach as children play in the sand.
"With time we've learnt to sleep
peacefully," said a young man from behind the wheel of his car waiting in
line outside a drive-through fast-food joint.
On the wall of a nearby building, giant
portraits of King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, architect of the
Saudi intervention in Yemen's war, proclaim: "God, keep this country in
security".
Last month, coalition spokesman Turki Al-Maliki
announced that the Huthis have fired more than 400 ballistic missiles and
launched over 850 attack drones at Saudi Arabia over the past seven years,
killing a total of 59 civilians.
"There's no reason to be afraid, the
army is on guard 24 hours a day and our military equipment is ready," said
another Jizan resident.
Grim turn in tit-for-tat attacks
In Al-Dayer, a town in Jizan province
separated from the border with Yemen by a mountain chain, Huthi attacks have
not deterred young men in pickups from wadi-bashing amid the sand dunes.
As tit-for-tat attacks took another grim
turn last week, the UN and NGOs accused the anti-Huthi coalition of having
killed at least 70 people in an air raid that pulverized a detention center in
the Huthi heartland of Saada in northern Yemen.
In a surprise escalation in the UAE, three
oil workers were killed in a drone-and-missile assault on
Abu Dhabi on January
17.
In Yemen's seven years of conflict, more
than 150,000 people have been directly killed by fighting and millions
displaced, according to the UN, which calls it the world's worst humanitarian
crisis.
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