TEHRAN- Yemeni armed forces, led by the Houthi Ansarullah movement, have launched a drone strike on an arms depot at an airport in Saudi Arabia’s southern Najran region in retaliation for the kingdom’s bloody military aggression against the impoverished country.

The Houthi-run al-Masirah TV channel has reported that the attack was carried out by a Qasef-2K combat drone on Tuesday, causing a fire at the airport.

Also on Monday, the air defenses of the Yemeni army and the popular committees shot down a hostile Saudi spy drone in the Hais district of the western Hudaydah Province.

The Saudi-led coalition has claimed that a civilian facility in Najran was targeted with an explosives-laden drone in Tuesday's strike.

In a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA), coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Maliki said the Houthis were posing “a real threat to regional and international security by targeting civilian objects and civilian facilities.”

He did not, however, give further details of the drone attack, which came a week after Yemeni drones targeted the East-West pipeline in the heart of Saudi Arabia, forcing the state oil giant Aramco to temporarily halt pumping oil on the vital pipeline.

According to Press TV, the Houthi movement, which both runs Yemen’s state affairs and defends the country against the Saudi-led aggression launched in March 2015, said the drone attacks were in response to the regime’s crimes against the Yemeni nation.

On Sunday, Ansarullah warned that the strikes targeting the oil pipeline were the start of operations against 300 vital targets in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

 Yemeni forces dismiss Saudi claim about targeting Mecca

Meanwhile, the spokesman for the Yemeni armed forces has categorically dismissed allegations spread in Saudi media about the firing of a Yemeni ballistic missile toward the holy city of Mecca.

"The Saudi regime is trying, through these allegations, to rally support for its brutal aggression against our great Yemeni people," Brigadier General Yahya Sare'e said in a posting on Facebook on Monday.

Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV reported that Saudi air defenses shot down a ballistic missile over the city of Taif, 65 kilometers east of Mecca, in the early hours of Monday. Another missile was launched at the port city of Jeddah, on the other side of Mecca. The first one had been directed toward Mecca, it said, without giving evidence.

The Yemeni official, however, stressed that by leveling such claims, the Saudi regime is trying by to rally support for his brutal aggression on its southern neighbor.

"The Saudi regime is again trying to exploit the religious status of Mecca to cover up its crimes against the Yemeni people," Sare'e said, adding, "We will not hesitate to announce our military operations and we do not need to wait for incorrect judgments about our goals and the timing of our operations."