RIYADH – The US Patriot Missiles deployed in Saudi Arabia seem to befailing although the kingdom overnight said it intercepted all seven firedmissiles from Yemen— but online videos raise new questions about thoseclaims.
One video appears to show a Patriot missile launch on Sunday night gorapidly wrong, with the missile changing course midair, crashing into aneighbourhood in Riyadh and exploding. Another appears to detonate shortlyafter being launched in the Saudi capital.
Saudi Arabia’s Information Ministry did not respond to requests for commentMonday from The Associated Press. However, the videos appear to show thekingdom being yet another country overstating the capability of the missiledefense system, a tradition dating back to the 1991 Gulf War.
“It’s more likely that none of the missiles have been intercepted than itis that the Saudis have shot down any,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a missileexpert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey,California, who watched the videos and previously has studied other SaudiPatriot missile launches.
Saudi Arabia says it has been targeted by some 90 ballistic missilelaunched by Yemen’s Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, and their allies sincelaunching a war against them three years ago.
Sunday night’s launch saw one Egyptian killed and two others wounded inRiyadh by a missile fragment, marking the first casualties in the Saudicapital since the war began. Previous rockets fired by the Yemeni rebelshave caused deaths in other parts of the kingdom.
The Saudi military said it intercepted seven ballistic missiles fired bythe Houthis at the kingdom, three of them targeting Riyadh, two targetingJazan and one apiece targeting Najran and Khamis Mushait.
The Saudi-owned satellite news channel Al Arabiya aired footage that itsaid showed Patriot missile batteries firing at the incoming Houthimissiles in Riyadh. One Patriot missile appears to explode seconds afterbeing launched, drawing a shout from a bystander as flaming fragments raindown on the ground.
In another video circulated online, a just-launched Patriot missilesuddenly changes course, smashing into the ground near a residentialneighborhood.
The Saudi military did not acknowledge the apparent missile malfunctions.Saudi Col. Turki al-Maliki only said in a statement that “all sevenballistic missiles were intercepted and destroyed.”
This is not the first time experts question Saudi claims on missileinterceptions. – Agencies