Two people died when a Saudi Arabian reconnaissance helicopter crashed near the border with war-torn Yemen, the first fatalities of their kind reported by the kingdom since the latest flare-up in its battle against Houthi rebels.
The Future Investment Initiative, the flagship Saudi financial gathering due later this month, is looking at contingency measures including virtual attendance, Bloomberg has reported. The AH-6i helicopter’s crash near the city of Najran was due to a technical fault, the Saudi-led coalition leading a campaign against the Houthis said.
The Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted several waves of drones over Riyadh this weekend and destroyed ballistic and cruise missiles in other areas, including attempts to target the Red Sea port city of Yanbu and the Khamis Mushait border area.
That disputes the Iranian-backed group’s earlier claim that it had downed a similar aircraft.
The drama has brought pledges of support from some of Saudi Arabia’s allies. “We’re talking about for defense only. They hit the presidential palace in the city a few days before, killing several security personnel.
Egypt’s parliament is due to convene for an emergency session on Sunday, a day after President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi urged the assembly to authorize measures to support the kingdom’s defense, should there be a Saudi request to do so.
The aim of any authorization wouldn’t be to “fight someone or attack someone,” El-Sisi said during a military graduation ceremony. The Houthis struck the airport in Aden, the seat of Yemen’s internationally-recognized government, on Friday night, according to the state-run Saba news agency.
