Saudi-led coalition says intercepted two Houthi armed drones

The Saudi-led military coalition engaged in Yemen said on Sunday it had intercepted and destroyed two armed drones launched by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement towards southern Saudi Arabia.

A bomb-laden unmanned aerial vehicle was intercepted early on Sunday, coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki said in a statement on Saudi state media. Coalition forces later intercepted another drone, also launched towards southern Saudi Arabia with the aim of targeting "civilians and civilian objects", a second statement quoted Malki as saying.

The coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 against the Houthis after the group ousted the Saudi-backed government from power in the capital Sanaa, in a conflict widely seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.