Image copyright Reuters Image caption The prison complex was decimated by three air strikes

Dozens of people have been killed at a Yemeni prison complex in air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition, reports say.

Strikes hit a building used as a prison in the al-Zaydiya security headquarters in the western port of Hudaydah, security and medical officials say.

The city is under the control of Houthi rebels, who have been battling the government since 2014.

Rebels and inmates were among the 60 dead, officials said. Dozens more are believed to have been wounded.

The prison was holding 84 inmates when it was hit three times late on Saturday, reports said. Pictures from the scene showed badly wounded people being rushed to hospital.

The coalition, which backs Yemen's exiled President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, has been criticised for the number of civilians killed in its air strikes.

But a coalition statement quoted by Reuters news agency suggested that the building was a legitimate target and said "targeting protocols and procedures were followed fully".

"This building is used by Houthi militia and the forces of the deposed president as a command and control centre for their military operations," the statement said, referring to former head of state Ali Abdullah Saleh who is backing the rebels.

Earlier this month, at least 140 people were killed, most of them civilians, when planes bombed a funeral hall in Yemen's capital, Sanaa.

The coalition later blamed the attack on "bad information".

The latest air strikes came as President Hadi rejected a new peace proposal submitted by UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption At least 60 were killed and many injured at the prison

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Reports suggest around 84 inmates were in the building

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Images from the scene show the prison reduced to rubble

President Hadi, who lives in exile in the Saudi capital Riyadh, said the plan "rewards the coup leaders and punishes the Yemeni people at the same time".

Details of the peace "roadmap" have not been made public but are believed to give the rebels a share in any future government.

The plan is also believed to involve reducing some presidential powers in exchange for Houthis withdrawing from major cities.

The Shia Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014. Much of the internationally-recognised government is now based in Yemen's second city of Aden.

The conflict escalated in March 2015 when the Saudi-led coalition launched an air campaign to try to push the rebels back.</s>SANAA/HODEIDAH, Yemen (Reuters) - An air raid by an Arab coalition killed 60 people in Yemen, including inmates of a prison near the city of Hodeidah, medical sources said.

The prison held 84 inmates when it was struck three times late on Saturday, Hashem al-Azizi, deputy governor of the province of Hodeidah, told Reuters.

The Saudi-led alliance that conducted the raid said it struck a “central security building” used as a military command center by the Houthi rebels it is fighting. Local officials said the prison lies within a security complex but that only prison guards were present during the air strike.

“This building is used by Houthi militia and the forces of the deposed president as a command and control center for their military operations,” a statement by the coalition said, referring to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, a Houthi ally.

Related Coverage Arab coalition says Hodeidah raid hit Houthi command center

“The coalition forces’ leadership stresses that targeting protocols and procedures were followed fully,‎” the statement said.

The Saudi-led coalition has been fighting Yemen’s Houthi movement since March 2015. It wants to restore the internationally recognized president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was driven into exile by the Iran-allied Houthis in late 2014.

A Reuters witness at the security complex said the building was destroyed and medics pulled about 17 bodies away, many of them missing limbs. Others remained trapped under the rubble.

One of the strikes directly targeted the building, the witness said, bringing it down over the heads of the prisoners. Two others hit the gate of the complex and nearby administration buildings.

People gather at a prison struck by Arab coalition warplanes in al-Zaydiyah district of the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Yemen October 30, 2016. REUTERS/Abduljabbar Zeyad

The air attack was one of the deadliest among thousands of bombings. The attacks have largely failed to dislodge the Houthis from the capital, Sanaa, but have repeatedly hit schools, markets, hospitals and homes, killing many civilians.

HADI REJECTS PEACE PLAN

Rights groups have said the raids may amount to war crimes, but an investigative body set up by the coalition largely defended its methods in an August report, which concluded that Houthi rebels regularly deploy to civilian sites.

The Houthis deny this, and a top official in the movement criticized the United Nations and the United States, the Saudis’ key ally and arms supplier, for not doing enough to hold the kingdom accountable for its air strikes.

“We condemn the position of the international community and the U.N. for providing cover for the crimes of Saudi Arabia against Yemenis, and they are subject to the wishes of America,” Saleh al-Samad said in a statement late on Saturday.

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The bombing may signal a renewed outbreak of violence a day after Hadi rejected a new U.N. peace proposal, saying the deal would only be a path to more war and destruction.

Speaking after a meeting with U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed in Riyadh, Hadi said the agreement would “reward the rebels and penalize the Yemeni people and legitimacy”, according to the government-controlled Saba news agency.

According to a copy of the proposal seen by Reuters, the plan would sideline Hadi and set up a government of less divisive figures.

Hadi’s opponents accuse him of commanding only a small support base in Yemen and of being unable to bring its warring factions together, since he invited the Saudi-led coalition to intervene in the civil war.</s>SANAA, Yemen — Dozens of prisoners and security personnel were feared dead after Saudi-led airstrikes on Saturday battered two prisons inside a security headquarters in a western port city, security and medical officials said.

The airstrikes bombed the al-Zaydiya security headquarters in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida. The building contained two prisons and many prisoners along with security forces have been killed in the strikes, the officials said.

The city is under control of Yemen's Shiite Houthi rebels who have seized the capital and much of the northern region in 2014. The Houthis' TV network al-Masirah said that 43 people were killed in the airstrikes but it was not immediately possible to verify its account.

The airstrikes came hours after warplanes rained bombs on houses of civilians in the western city of Taiz, killing at least 18 people, including children, earlier in the day.

The latest airstrikes come at a time Yemen's president in exile has turned down a U.N. peace deal aimed at ending the country's devastating conflict, saying it "rewards" Yemen's rebels.

The proposed peace deal gives the Houthi rebels — who seized the capital Sanaa in 2014 and eventually forced President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi out of Yemen — a share in the future government. It also reduces some of the president's powers in exchange for a rebel withdrawal from major cities.

Hadi made his remarks during a visit by the U.N. Envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Saturday.

"The Yemeni people have condemned these ideas and the so-called road map out of belief that the deal is a gateway to more suffering and war," a statement by the presidency quoted Hadi as saying.

"The ideas presented ... carry the seeds of war," he added. "It rewards the coup leaders and punishes the Yemeni people at the same time."

The statement said Hadi told Ahmed that peace is only attainable when the rebel "coup" is reversed, based on a U.N. Security Council resolution that stipulates the rebels must lay down their weapons and withdraw from cities as a precondition to any peace agreement.

A presidency official told The Associated Press that Hadi has come under heavy international pressure to accept the deal. He said that ambassadors of the United States, France, China and Russia have held meetings with Hadi and his prime minister in the past 24 hours to press him to accept the deal. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The conflict in Yemen has left more than 10,000 dead and injured and displaced nearly 3 million people. The Arab world's poorest nation had already been suffering from high rates of malnutrition, and the war and a blockade imposed by a Saudi-led military coalition have pushed the country deeper into starvation and turmoil.

Rights groups have accused the Saudi-led coalition of killing civilians, while trying to target rebels. Weddings, funerals, schools and hospitals have been bombed in the past year.

Witnesses say a car bomb exploded Saturday in the southern city of Aden at a checkpoint steps away from the central bank, which had been relocated recently from the rebel-held capital of Sanaa.

The bomb wounded three soldiers and caused panic in the busy commercial district of Crater, the witnesses said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.

Aden is the temporary capital of the internationally-recognized government which was forced out of Sanaa by the rebels in 2014. A Saudi-led military coalition has since intervened and continues to battle the rebels alongside forces loyal to Hadi. This summer, Hadi ordered the relocation of the country's central bank from Sanaa to Aden, amid accusations that the rebels were misusing state funds.

Also on Saturday, two families of 18 people were killed when warplanes bombed their houses in a southern district called al-Salw, in the war-torn western city of Taiz.

Taiz, the cultural center of Yemen, has been torn between coalition-backed forces and the Houthi rebels for the past year and a half. The district that came under attack is close to the front line, and officials said that it is often difficult to distinguish rebels from government forces.

The fighting between the two sides intensified in al-Salw in recent days and many families have fled their homes.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.</s>Arab coalition warplanes bombed a security complex near the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah, killing 60 people including inmates of a prison on the site, a regional official, relatives and medical sources said on Sunday.

The prison in the city’s al-Zaydiyah district was holding 84 inmates when it was struck three times late on Saturday, Hashem al-Azizi, deputy governor of the Houthi rebel-controlled Hodeidah province of the same name, told Reuters.

Local officials said the site lies within a security complex for the area guarded by Houthi militiamen but that only prison security guards were present during the night-time air strike.

The Saudi-led coalition has been fighting Yemen’s armed Houthi movement since March 2015 to try to restore the internationally recognised President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was driven into exile by the Iran-allied group in late 2014.

A Reuters witness at the security complex said the entire building was destroyed and medics pulled about 17 bodies away - many of them missing limbs - while others remained stuck under the rubble.

One of the strikes directly targeted the building, the witness added, bringing it down over the heads of the prisoners, while two others hit the gate of the complex and nearby administration buildings.

A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The air attack was one of the deadliest among thousands of bombings which have largely failed to dislodge the Houthis from the capital Sanaa but have repeatedly hit schools, markets, hospitals and homes, killing many civilians.

Rights groups have said the raids may amount to war crimes, but an investigative body set up by the coalition largely defended its methods in an August report which concluded that Houthi rebels regularly deploy to civilian sites.

The Houthis deny this, and a top official in the movement criticised the United Nations and the Saudis’ key ally and arms supplier, the United States, for not doing enough to hold the kingdom accountable for its air strikes.

“We condemmn the position of the international community and the UN for providing cover for the crimes of Saudi Arabia against Yemenis, and they are subject to the wishes of America,” Saleh al-Samad said in a statement late on Saturday.

The bombing may signal a renewed uptick in violence a day after Mr Hadi rejected a new UN peace proposal to end the turmoil in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country, saying the deal would only be a path to more war and destruction.

Speaking after meeting UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed in Riyadh, Mr Hadi said the agreement would “reward the rebels and penalise the Yemeni people and legitimacy”, according to the government-controlled Saba news agency.

According to a copy of the proposal seen by Reuters, the plan would sideline Mr Hadi and set up a government of less divisive figures.

Mr Hadi’s opponents accuse him of commanding only a small support base in Yemen and of being unable to bring its warring factions together given that he invited the Saudi-led coalition to intervene in the civil war.</s>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—Shiite rebels in Yemen fired a ballistic missile toward the holy Muslim city of Mecca overnight, Saudi Arabia said on Friday, the insurgents’ deepest strike yet into the kingdom amid the country’s stalemate civil war. Rebel media in Yemen said the missile targeted an international airport in Jiddah, though Saudi Arabia said it was “intercepted and destroyed” 65 kilometers (40 miles) from Mecca, which is home to the cube-shaped Kaaba that the world’s Muslims pray toward five times a day.

The missile launch shows the capability of Yemen’s Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, and their allies to continue to strike Saudi Arabia. It also drew the immediate anger of Saudi citizens, as the protection of Mecca is a key pillar of the Saudi royal family’s prestige and the country’s national identity.

The Saudi military said the missile, fired on Thursday night from Yemen’s northwestern Saada province bordering the kingdom, caused no damage. The Saudi military has a supply of US-made, surface-to-air Patriot missile batteries it previously has fired at Houthi-launched missiles.

The military said in a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency that it immediately targeted the area where the missile was launched in air strikes.

The Houthis and their allies, including forces loyal to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, have a stockpile of Soviet-era Scud missiles and locally designed variants. The Houthi-controlled satellite news channel Al-Masirah published a bulletin saying its forces had fired a Volcano-1 variant missile at Jiddah’s King Abdulaziz International Airport, without mentioning Mecca. That airport is 75 kilometers (45 miles) northwest of Mecca.

The Houthi-controlled Saba news agency said the missile “directly hit” the airport and caused massive destruction. There were no immediate delays or diversions affecting the airport on Friday.

A Houthi ballistic missile fired earlier this month targeted Taif, home to Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd Air Base, which also is near Mecca.

Yemen, on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, has been in the midst of a civil war since September 2014, when the Iranian-backed Houthis swept into the capital of Sanaa and overthrew the country’s internationally recognized government. In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition of Arab countries began a military campaign against the Houthi forces, saying its mission served in part as a counterbalance to Iran’s influence following its nuclear deal with world powers.

The Saudi-led campaign initially had the logistical and intelligence support of the US, but mounting civilian casualties from its air strikes led to America pulling back, especially after a Saudi strike earlier this month on a funeral in Sanaa killed some 140 people and wounded over 600. The US also fired Tomahawk missiles at mobile Houthi radar sites after reporting its warships came under fire in the Red Sea near the crucial Bab al-Mandeb strait.

In recent days, two commercial ships reportedly have come under fire in the same area.</s>SANAA, Yemen -- Dozens of prisoners and security personnel were feared dead after Saudi-led airstrikes on Saturday battered two prisons inside a security headquarters in a western port city, security and medical officials said.

The airstrikes bombed the al-Zaydiya security headquarters in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida. The building contained two prisons, and many prisoners and security forces were killed in the strikes, the officials said.

The city is under control of Yemen's Shiite Houthi rebels, who seized the capital and much of the northern region in 2014. The Houthis' TV network al-Masirah said that 43 people were killed in the airstrikes, but it was not immediately possible to verify its account.

The airstrikes came hours after warplanes rained bombs on houses of civilians in the western city of Taiz, killing at least 18 people, including children.

The latest airstrikes occurred at a time Yemen's president in exile has turned down a United Nations peace deal aimed at ending the country's devastating conflict, saying it "rewards" Yemen's rebels.

The proposed peace deal gives the Houthi rebels -- who seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014 and eventually forced President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi out of Yemen -- a share in the future government. It also reduces some of the president's powers in exchange for a rebel withdrawal from major cities.

Hadi made his remarks during a visit Saturday by the U.N. envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

"The Yemeni people have condemned these ideas and the so-called road map out of belief that the deal is a gateway to more suffering and war," a statement by the presidency quoted Hadi as saying.

"The ideas presented ... carry the seeds of war," he added. "It rewards the coup leaders and punishes the Yemeni people at the same time."

The statement said Hadi told Ahmed that peace is only attainable when the rebel "coup" is reversed, based on a U.N. Security Council resolution that stipulates the rebels must lay down their weapons and withdraw from cities as a precondition to any peace agreement.

A presidency official said Hadi has come under heavy international pressure to accept the deal. He said ambassadors of the United States, France, China and Russia have held meetings with Hadi and his prime minister in the past 24 hours to press him to accept the deal. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The conflict in Yemen has left more than 10,000 people dead and injured and displaced nearly 3 million people. The Arab world's poorest nation already had been suffering from high rates of malnutrition, and the war and a blockade imposed by a Saudi-led military coalition have pushed the country deeper into starvation and turmoil.

Rights groups have accused the Saudi-led coalition of killing civilians, while trying to target rebels. Weddings, funerals, schools and hospitals have been bombed in the past year.

Witnesses say a car bomb exploded Saturday in the southern city of Aden at a checkpoint steps away from the central bank, which had been relocated recently from Sanaa, the rebel-held capital.

The bomb wounded three soldiers and caused panic in the busy commercial district of Crater, the witnesses said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.</s>In an apparent bid to limit damage caused by its bombing of a funeral gathering in Sanaa, Yemen, killing 140 mourners and injuring hundreds, Saudi Arabia has claimed that the Houthis have targeted the holy city of Mecca with a ballistic missile that was "intercepted and destroyed" 65 kilometers from Mecca.

Video grap of the bombing on the funeral in Yemen

Mecca is the home of Kaaba, also known as the Grand Mosque, to which all Muslims in the world turn their faces for their daily prayers.

The Yemeni Houthi army's spokesman Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman denied Saudi claim of targeting the holy city of Mecca. He slammed the allegation as "a media war and misleading of public opinion," affirming that his army fighters are "very careful to spare civilian areas, particularly the Islamic holy sites, from any attack." Brigadier Luqman said that Thursday's ballistic missile attack was targeted at the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

The Houthis and their allies, including forces loyal to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, have a stockpile of Soviet-era Scud missiles and locally designed variants. A Houthi ballistic missile fired earlier this month targeted Taif, home to Saudi Arabia's King Fahd Air Base, which also is near Mecca.

The Associated Press pointed out that invoking Mecca also invigorated support for Saudi Arabia as it leads the stalemated war in the Arab world's poorest country, as well as turned attention away from those starving under a kingdom-led blockade and the civilians killed in its airstrikes.

Gulf Arab countries allied with Saudi Arabia immediately began condemning the attack, suggesting the Houthis intentionally targeted the Islamic world’s holiest site, the Kaaba. Many also immediately linked the attack to Iran, further inflaming regional sectarianism.

“The Iranian regime supports a terrorist group that launched its rockets on Mecca,” Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nayhan wrote on Twitter. “Is this regime Islamic as it claims?”

In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi dismissed the claims that the Houthis targeted Mecca as “ridiculous.” “We advise officials of the [United Arab] Emirates and Saudi Arabia not to use Islamic holy sites for their mean political intentions and not to resort to this sort of hypocritical, rift-making and dangerous hyperbole,” Ghasemi was quoted as saying by Iran’s ISNA news agency.

Yemen, on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, has been in the midst of a civil war since September 2014 when the Houthis swept into the capital of Sanaa and overthrew the country's western recognized government. In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition of Arab countries began air strikes against the Houthi forces.

However, the human right groups are alarmed at the mounting civilian casualties from the airstrikes, especially the Saudi strike earlier this month on a funeral in Sanaa killing some 140 people and wounded over 600.

The Associated Press reported that more than 10,000 people have been killed or wounded and 3 million of the country's 26 million people have been driven from their homes by the fighting.

In August, a UN report said that the airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen are responsible for the majority of civilians killed in the ongoing conflict.

The Yemeni news agency Saba reported Sunday (Oct 30), at least 60 prisoners were killed and 38 others wounded when the US-backed Saudi-led coalition fighter jets bombed a prison early on Sunday in al- Zaydiya district of al-Hodayda port city. The prison was totally collapsed.

Medical officials told Saba that the death toll could rise in the next hours because a lot of injured were in critical conditions and the hospitals are suffering from acute shortage of medicines due to the 19-month prolonged air, sea and land blockade.

On Saturday, Oct 29, at least 17 civilians, including 11 members of one family, were killed in a Saudi-led coalition airstrike in the war-torn western city of Taiz, Yemeni officials said, adding that the airstrike targeted the house of a citizen in a southern district called al-Salw. Taiz has been fought over between coalition-backed forces and Houthi rebels for the past 18 months.

Earlier this month, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the Saudi-led coalition of war crimes following an airstrike on a funeral in Yemen. On October 8, at least two air-dropped munitions penetrated the roof of a hall containing over 1,000 mourners during the funeral ceremony of Ali al-Rawishan, the father of the Sana’a-based administration’s interior minister, Jalal al-Rawishan. At least 140 people were killed and 610 wounded.

“After unlawfully attacking schools, markets, hospitals, weddings, and homes over the last 19 months, the Saudi-led coalition has now added a funeral to its ever-increasing list of abuses,” Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East and North Africa director, said.

After interviewing survivors of the tragedy and examining information relating to the strike, the New York-based organization concluded that the Saudi strike was a deliberate action – first of all, because the funeral service, which was attended by over 1,000 mourners, was made public ahead of time via a Facebook post.

In addition to the Saudis, HRW said that the US and the UK are indirectly complicit in the deaths of civilians in the strike, and the overall severity of casualties in the 19-month long civil war in Yemen.

According to HRW’s record, since the beginning of the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen (which began on March 26, 2015), the Saudi coalition, with direct military support from the US and assistance from the UK, have conducted at least 58 “unlawful airstrikes.”

The HRW has repeatedly criticized the coalition’s use of US and UK-produced weapons, including cluster munition in Yemen. Yet despite calls by US officials to review its support for its Middle Eastern ally, the HRW noted that the US continues to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, approving more than $20 billion in military sales in 2015 alone.

Going back to the Saudi claim of Houthi’s missile attack on Mecca where Islam’s holiest place is located, it will be instructive to relate the real attacks on Kaaba in the past.

The Kaaba has been repaired and reconstructed many times since Prophet Muhammad's time. The structure was severely damaged by fire in October 683, during the first siege of Mecca in the war between the Umayyads and Abd-Allah ibn al-Zubayr, who ruled Mecca for many years between the death of Ali Ben Talib (the fourth caliph) and the consolidation of Umayyad power.

The Kaaba was bombarded with stones in the second siege of Mecca in 692, in which the Umayyad army was led by al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. The fall of the city and the death of Ibn al-Zubayr allowed the Umayyads under ʿAbdu l-Malik ibn Marwan to finally reunite all the Islamic possessions and end the long civil war.

During the Hajj of 930, the Qarmatians attacked Mecca, defiled the Zamzam Well with the bodies of pilgrims and stole the Black Stone, taking it to the oasis region of Eastern Arabia known as al-Aḥsāʾ, where it remained until the Abbasids ransomed it in 952.

In recent history, the Kaaba seizure occurred during November and December 1979 when insurgents calling for the overthrow of the House of Saud took over the Kaaba. The insurgents declared that the Mahdi (the "redeemer of Islam") had arrived in the form of one of their leaders – Mohammed Abdullah al-Qahtani – and called on Muslims to obey him. Al-Qahtani was killed in the recapture of the Kaaba, which is also known as the Grand Mosque.

Soon after the rebel seizure, about a hundred security officers of the Ministry of Interior attempted to retake the mosque, but were turned back with heavy casualties. The survivors were quickly joined by units of the Saudi Arabian Army and Saudi Arabian National Guard.

According to Lawrence Wright in the book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, a team of three French commandos from the Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale (GIGN) arrived in Mecca. The commandos pumped gas into the underground chambers. More than two weeks after the assault began, the surviving rebels finally surrendered.

However, this account is contradicted by at other accounts, including that of then GIGN commanding officer Christian Prouteau: the three GIGN commandos trained and equipped the Saudi forces and devised their attack plan but did not take part in the action and did not set foot in the Mosque. He claims that Pakistani SSG commandos carried out the operation instead.

The Kaaba seizure was led by Juhayman al-Otaybi, a member of an influential family in Najd. Juhayman and 67 of his fellow rebels, who survived the assault, were captured and later beheaded.

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com</s>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Yemen's Shiite rebels and their allies fired a ballistic missile deep into Saudi Arabia, an overnight strike that they said on Friday had targeted an international airport while the kingdom claimed that it flew toward the holy Muslim city of Mecca.

Saudi Arabia said the missile was "intercepted and destroyed" 65 kilometers (40 miles) from Mecca, which is home to the cube-shaped Kaaba that the world's Muslims pray toward five times a day.

Angry Saudis soon denounced the missile fire online with hashtags questioning the faith of Yemen's Shiite rebels known as Houthis, as other Sunni Arab leaders in the Gulf linked the attack to Shiite power Iran.

Invoking Mecca also invigorated support for Saudi Arabia as it leads the stalemated war in the Arab world's poorest country, as well as turned attention away from those starving under a kingdom-led blockade and the civilians killed in its airstrikes.

The Saudi military said the missile, fired Thursday night from Yemen's northwestern Saada province, which borders the kingdom, caused no damage. The Saudi military has a supply of U.S.-made, surface-to-air Patriot missile batteries it previously has fired at Houthi-launched missiles.

The kingdom's military said in a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency that it immediately targeted the area where the missile was launched in airstrikes.

The Houthis and their allies, including forces loyal to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, have a stockpile of Soviet-era Scud missiles and locally designed variants. A Houthi ballistic missile fired earlier this month targeted Taif, home to Saudi Arabia's King Fahd Air Base, which also is near Mecca.

What the missile fired Thursday night targeted, however, quickly became a controversy.

The Houthi-controlled satellite news channel Al-Masirah said the Yemeni rebels had fired a Volcano-1 variant missile at Jiddah's King Abdulaziz International Airport, without mentioning Mecca. That airport is 75 kilometers (45 miles) northwest of Mecca.

The Houthi-controlled SABA news agency said the missile "directly hit" the airport and caused massive destruction, though there were no delays or diversions affecting the airport Friday.

The Saudi military, however, stressed the missile was fired "toward" Mecca, without elaborating — the protection of the holy city is a key pillar of the Saudi royal family's prestige and the country's national identity.

Gulf Arab countries allied with Saudi Arabia immediately began condemning the attack, suggesting the Houthis intentionally targeted the Islamic world's holiest site. Many also immediately linked the attack to Iran, further inflaming regional sectarianism.

"The Iranian regime supports a terrorist group that launched its rockets on Mecca," Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nayhan wrote on Twitter. "Is this regime Islamic as it claims?"

While analysts suggest Tehran doesn't have direct control over the Houthis, the U.S. Navy says it is has intercepted Iranian arms heading to the rebels.

In Iran, state media reported on the ballistic missile fire citing international reports, without any government comment.

Yemen, on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, has been in the midst of a civil war since September 2014 when the Houthis swept into the capital of Sanaa and overthrew the country's internationally recognized government. In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition of Arab countries began a military campaign against the Houthi forces, saying its mission served in part as a counterbalance to Iran's influence following its nuclear deal with world powers.

The Saudi-led campaign initially had the logistical and intelligence support of the U.S., but mounting civilian casualties from its airstrikes led to America pulling back, especially after a Saudi strike earlier this month on a funeral in Sanaa killed some 140 people and wounded over 600.

The U.S. also fired Tomahawk missiles at mobile Houthi radar sites after reporting its warships came under fire in the Red Sea near the crucial Bab el-Mandeb strait. In recent days, two commercial ships reportedly have come under fire in the same area.

United Nations efforts to strike a peace deal to end the conflict have been slow. The most recent plan apparently sidelines President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi of Yemen's internationally recognized government. Saudi Arabia launched its coalition campaign to restore Hadi's rule, so that's likely a deal breaker for the Sunni-ruled kingdom.

In the meantime, Yemen stands on the brink of famine. More than 10,000 people have been killed or wounded and 3 million of the country's 26 million people have been driven from their homes by the fighting.
Two prisons in Al Hudaydah, Yemen, are bombed by Saudi Arabian jets, leaving at least 60 dead.