Yemeni rebel attack on Saudi airport kills one, wounds 21 – coalition

Yemen's Houthi movement launched an attack on Abha civilian airport in southern Saudi Arabia on Sunday that killed one person and wounded 21 others, the Saudi-led coalition battling the group in Yemen said.

Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV earlier said that the Iran-aligned movement had targeted Abha and Jizan airports in the south of the kingdom with drones attacks.

"A terrorist attack by the Iran-backed Houthi militia targeted Abha airport, killing a Syrian resident and wounding 21 civilians," the coalition said in a statement carried on Saudi state television.

It did not confirm an attack on Jizan airport.

The strike came hours before US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo landed in the kingdom, his first stop in the Middle East for talks on Iran amid escalating regional tensions.

The US abruptly called off military strikes against Iran in response to the shooting down of an unmanned American surveillance drone on Thursday.

The Trump administration has combined a "maximum pressure" campaign of economic sanctions with a buildup of American forces in the region following the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. 

A new set of US sanctions on Iran are expected to be announced Monday.

Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen's civil war in 2015. Supporting the Aden government in Yemen, the kingdom and the UAE have been fighting the Houthis in a deadly war which has stripped the country of food, infrastructure and security.

Sunday's was the second attack in less than two weeks on Abha's airport. 

The Houthis launched a cruise missile at the airport on June 12, wounding 26 passengers inside. 

The Iranian-alligned group also claimed responsibility for bomb-laden drone strikes that targeted a key Saudi oil pipeline in recent weeks.

Pompeo in Saudi Arabia

Pompeo's meetings in Saudi Arabia will be in the Red Sea city of Jiddah, about 505 kilometres (315 miles) north of where the Saudi airport was struck.

Speaking to reporters before flying out, he said he'll be talking to the two US allies "about how to make sure that we are all strategically aligned" and how to build a global coalition to "push back against the world's largest state sponsor of terror."

At the same time, Pompeo reiterated that the US was prepared to negotiate with Iran to ease tensions.

"We're prepared to negotiate with no preconditions. They know precisely how to find us," he said.