Olayinka Ilori with Agency Report/
Air Defence Forces in Saudi Arabia intercepted two ballistic missiles heading for the City of Mecca and Jeddah yesterday while Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, and the leader of his political party (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu were in the city.
According to authorities in Saudi Arabia, the ballistic missiles were fired at dawn; the first over Taif, heading for the city of Mecca, and the other over Jeddah. They were allegedly fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, say reports in local media.
Saudi’s Al-Arabiya TV channel reported that the Saudi air defence forces were able to destroy the ballistic missiles.
Reuters quoted a Saudi coalition spokesman as saying that the “Royal Saudi Defence Forces spotted aerial targets flying through restricted areas in the provinces of Jeddah and Taif and dealt with them as required by the situation”.
President Buhari was invited by the Saudi monarch, King Salman Bin Abdulaziz, to visit the country with the aim of performing the Umrah.
Tinubu was with President Buhari yesterday at an Iftar dinner in Mecca.
Also at the dinner were Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence, Alhaji Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar and Emir of Kazaure, Dr. Najib Hussaini Adamu, Nigerian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Justice Isa Dodo, Malam Mamman Daura, Malam Isma’ila Isa, Mr Wale Tinubu and Mr Hakeem P. Fahm, the Commissioner of Science and Technology, Lagos State.
Buhari has returned to Nigeria today.
In July 2017 Saudi Arabia accused the Houthis of targeting Islam’s holy city of Mecca with a missile.
Saudi Arabia announced last week that drones attacked two oil pumping stations in Afif and Dawadmi provinces in Riyadh.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Riyadh is leading a coalition of Arab states which began launching air strikes in Yemen in March 2015 to restore to power internationally backed President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who was driven from the capital in 2014 by Houthi fighters and militias allied with former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Saleh severed ties with the Houthis on December 2. He was killed by the group two days later.