Saudi air defence shoots down missile fired from Yemen

Witnesses said warplanes first bombed workers drilling for water, then hit a crowd gathered at the scene.

Residents of Beit Saadan, a rebel-held village in the Arhab district north of the capital Sanaa, said coalition warplanes targeted workers drilling for water on Saturday, apparently mistaking their machinery for a rocket-launcher.

Saudi Arabia started bombing the Houthi opposition faction in Yemen at the request of exiled-President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi in March 2015.

The Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen says Saudi air defense forces have shot down a ballistic missile fired at the kingdom from Yemen.

At least 21 civilians were killed in two separate airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition in northern Yemen Saturday, residents said, as fighting intensified in the country before the Muslim Eid al-Adha feast.

Since 2014 the Houthi gained enough ground.

The death toll from the two attacks was put at around 100, local media claimed, accompanying the reports with photos of burned bodies and destroyed equipment.

The UN-sponsored peace talks between Yemeni rival factions collapsed last month. Videos showed workers collecting mutilated bodies and carrying them away in blankets. The attack is said to have hit a three-storey block of flats in Amran City, Euronews reports.

The conflict has killed more than 10,000 people, according to the United Nations, and displaced more than three million people.

Gulf Arab states expressed concern on Monday over a bill passed by the US Congress that would allow relatives of victims of the 9/11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia for compensation.

In south-eastern Abyan province, a suicide bomber killed seven police conscripts and wounded 15 on Sunday when he drove a vehicle laden with explosives into a police compound in Hadi’s hometown, a local official said.