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Evo šta kaže New York Times
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Rebels in Yemen fired a ballistic missile on Tuesday at Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, for a second time in two months, though Saudi officials said that it had been intercepted and that there were no casualties.
Around midday, a large boom startled many in Riyadh, including customers at a cafe in the center of the city, where several ran outside to see a puff of gray smoke in the sky and black smoke rising from the ground nearby, presumably from the launch site of the defense systems.
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A spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition said the missile had been aimed at residential areas and had been intercepted “without any casualties,” according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency. The spokesman, Turki al-Maliki, called the possession of such weapons by militant groups like the Houthis “a threat to regional and international security.”
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The Houthis acknowledged firing the missile but said the target had been a palace of King Salman, the Saudi monarch, according to their television station, Al Masirah.
The attack came hours before King Salman was to lead a ceremony to announce the kingdom’s 2018 budget, and the timing suggested that the Houthis were trying to spread fear in the capital and draw attention away from the Saudi leadership’s plans for governance and development.
A ne veruju im zbog ovog:
The Houthis fired a missile at Riyadh’s international airport on Nov. 4. Saudi officials said their missile defenses had brought it down, but an investigation by The New York Times found that the missile had hit near its target and that it was unclear whether the body of the projectile had been struck.
Last week, Nikki R. Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, stood in front of what United States officials said were Iranian-made missiles, including the one that was fired at Riyadh’s international airport in November. But Defense Department officials said they doubted that the remnants on display validated Ms. Haley’s claims.
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The official story was clear: Saudi forces shot down a ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebel group last month at Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh. It was a victory for the Saudis and for the United States, which supplied the Patriot missile defense system.
“Our system knocked the missile out of the air,” President Trump said the next day from Air Force One en route to Japan, one of the 14 countries that use the system. “That’s how good we are. Nobody makes what we make, and now we’re selling it all over the world.”
But an analysis of photos and videos of the strike posted to social media suggests that story may be wrong.
Instead, evidence analyzed by a research team of missile experts appears to show the missile’s warhead flew unimpeded over Saudi defenses and nearly hit its target, Riyadh’s airport. The warhead detonated so close to the domestic terminal that customers jumped out of their seats.
Saudi officials did not respond to a request for comment. Some U.S. officials cast doubt on whether the Saudis hit any part of the incoming missile, saying there was no evidence that it had. Instead, they said, the incoming missile body and warhead may have come apart because of its sheer speed and force.
The findings show that the Iranian-backed Houthis, once a ragtag group of rebels, have grown powerful enough to strike major targets in Saudi Arabia, possibly shifting the balance of their years-long war. And they underscore longstanding doubts about missile defense technology, a centerpiece of American and allied national defense strategies, particularly against Iran and North Korea.
“Governments lie about the effectiveness of these systems. Or they’re misinformed,” said Jeffrey Lewis, an analyst who led the research team, which shared its findings with The New York Times. “And that should worry the hell out of us.”
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