DUBAI, United Arab Emirates —
The United Arab Emirates intercepted two ballistic missiles that Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for launching over the skies of Abu Dhabi early Monday, authorities said, the second attack in a week targeting the Emirati capital.
The missile fire further escalates tensions across the Persian Gulf, which previously had seen a series of assaults near — but never indisputably on — Emirati soil amid Yemen’s years-long war and the collapse of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers.
The attacks threaten the business-friendly, tourism-focused efforts of the Emirates, a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula. For years, the country, including the city of Dubai, has marketed itself as a safe corner of an otherwise dangerous neighborhood.
The UAE backs a Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting the Houthi rebels in a bid to prop up Yemen’s internationally recognized government. Although the UAE withdrew its troops from Yemen in 2019, it continues to help train and support pro-government militias in the country’s south.
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Videos on social media showed the sky over Abu Dhabi lighting up before dawn Monday with what appeared to be interceptor missiles racing into the clouds to target the incoming fire. Two explosions later thundered through the city. The footage in the videos corresponded to known features of Abu Dhabi.
The state-run WAM news agency said that missile fragments fell harmlessly over Abu Dhabi.
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The UAE is “ready to deal with any threats” and to take “all necessary measures to protect the state from all attacks,” WAM quoted the Emirati Defense Ministry as saying.
The missile fire disrupted traffic into Abu Dhabi International Airport, home to the long-haul carrier Etihad, for about an hour after the attack.
Houthi military spokesman Yehia Sarei claimed the attack in a televised statement, saying the rebels targeted the UAE with both Zulfiqar ballistic missiles and drones. He warned that the UAE would continue to be a target “as long as attacks on the Yemeni people continue.”
“We warn foreign companies and investors to leave the Emirates!” Sarei shouted from a podium. “This has become an unsafe country!”
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The U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi later issued a security alert to Americans living in the UAE, warning them to “maintain a high level of security awareness.” The alert included instructions on how to cope with missile attacks, something previously unheard-of in the UAE, a tourist destination home to skyscraper-studded Dubai and its long-haul carrier, Emirates.
“If these types of attacks end up occurring on a weekly basis as they do in Saudi Arabia … that will shift the perception of the threat landscape in the UAE,” said Torbjorn Soltvedt, an analyst with risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. “The concern is now the contagion is going to be broader if we start to see attacks against civilian infrastructure.”
The Emirati Defense Ministry later tweeted a black-and-white video that it said showed an F-16 striking the ballistic missile launcher used in the Abu Dhabi attack. The ministry identified the site as being near Jawaf, a Yemeni province around 870 miles southwest of Abu Dhabi.
The F-16 is flown by both Bahrain and the UAE, but not Saudi Arabia. The ministry did not specify which country flew the mission.
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The Zulfiqar ballistic missile, believed to have a range of about 930 miles, is modeled after the Iranian Qiam missile, according to a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Iran denies directly arming the Houthis, though United Nations experts, Western nations and analysts have linked weapons in the rebels’ arsenal to Tehran.
The missile launch Monday came a week after Houthi rebels claimed an attack on Abu Dhabi that targeted the airport and an Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. fuel depot in the Mussafah neighborhood. That attack on the fuel depot killed three people and wounded six others. The Houthis have to yet identify the missiles used in last week’s attack.
New high-resolution satellite photographs obtained by the Associated Press from Planet Labs PBC showed repair work still ongoing at the fuel depot Saturday. Emirati officials have not released images of the attacked sites, nor allowed journalists to see them.
In recent days, the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthi rebels unleashed punishing airstrikes on Yemen, knocking the Arab world’s poorest country off the internet and killing more than 80 people at a detention center.
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The Houthis threatened revenge against the Emirates and Saudi Arabia. On Sunday, the Saudi-led coalition said a Houthi-launched ballistic missile landed in an industrial area in Jizan, Saudi Arabia, slightly wounding a foreigner.
The hard-line Iranian daily newspaper Kayhan, whose editor-in-chief was appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, published a front-page article Sunday quoting Houthi officials as saying that the UAE would be attacked again. The story’s headline said: “Evacuate Emirati commercial towers.”
In 2017, the newspaper faced a two-day publication ban after it ran a headline saying Dubai was the “next target” for the Houthis.