Saudi Arabia warns it will react ‘firmly’ to Houthi attacks
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The Houthis have targeted the oil infrastructure of Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading crude exporter, pushing oil prices above the US$100 threshold.
PHOTO: AFP
- Saudi Arabia warns it will respond firmly to Houthi attacks after ballistic missile and drone strikes wounded 13 civilians and damaged key sites.
- The Houthis seized Yemen’s Red Sea coast and Bab al-Mandab Strait, intensifying conflict and impacting global oil prices above $100.
- Renewed fighting has displaced nearly 94,000 people, while regional tensions persist amid stalled talks between Gulf states and Iran.
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SANAA – Saudi Arabia vowed on Sept 15 to respond “firmly” to attacks by Yemen’s Houthis, after the Iran-backed fighters wounded 13 people in the kingdom in an assault using ballistic missiles and drones.
The Houthis have been engaged in renewed fighting with Saudi-backed government forces since Yemen’s civil war reignited in July, when the group declared a maritime blockade on Riyadh and began targeting its ships in the Red Sea.
The group seized control of Yemen’s Red Sea coast and the Bab al-Mandab Strait last week, which has become vital as the wider US-Iran war chokes the Strait of Hormuz.
The Houthis have also targeted the oil infrastructure of Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading crude exporter, pushing oil prices above the US$100 threshold.
A Houthi strike in western Yemen on Sept 14 killed eight government soldiers, according to two military sources.
The Houthis also claimed a new “large-scale” attack using “dozens of ballistic missiles and drones” against the King Khalid airbase in Khamis Mushait, in southern Saudi Arabia.
A Khamis Mushait resident told AFP he heard “intense blasts” that left fires burning for a “long time”.
“Honestly, we couldn’t sleep at all.”
In the early hours of Sept 15, the Saudi civil defence issued air-raid alerts in six regions, before lifting them.
The Riyadh-led coalition confirmed on Sept 15 there had been missile and drone attacks the previous day on Khamis Mushait, Abha and Taif, reporting 13 civilians wounded and damage to seven houses and two vehicles.
Riyadh responded with more than 50 strikes, as it had the day before, according to the Houthis.
The coalition said that it would deal with the attacks “firmly to protect the sovereignty of the Kingdom” and would take “all necessary operational measures to deter this... hostile and extremist approach”.
While Saudi Arabia has conducted dozens of air strikes on Houthi-held areas, it has failed so far to deter the fighters’ lightning offensive.
Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was expected to hold talks with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sept 15.
The US media reported last week that President Donald Trump had rejected a personal request from the Saudi Crown Prince to intervene in the war.
Hazem al-Assad from the Houthis’ politburo said the “Yemeni response will continue and escalate as long as they (Saudi Arabia) persist in their aggression against our people”.
The renewed fighting in Yemen comes as the wider regional war remains at a stalemate.
But Trump on Sept 14 said he was open to holding talks with Iran.
“The failing nation of Iran wants to make a deal, quickly and badly. I will determine whether or not the USA will choose to engage – the concept of which we are open to,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.
Iran’s top security chief Mohsen Rezaei said on X that “there will be no negotiations until Iran’s conditions are met. That is all there is to it”.
Tehran has repeatedly listed demands including war reparations and the lifting of sanctions as preconditions for ending the war and its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Meeting on Hormuz postponed
A proposed meeting between Gulf states and Iran over the future of Hormuz was postponed on Sept 14, with Tehran accusing Riyadh of using Yemen as a “pretext” to delay the talks.
Tehran has long supported the Houthis, a member of its anti-Israel “axis of resistance”, including with weapons and technology, but analysts dispute the extent to which Iran is behind the renewed fighting.
“Iran does not interfere in Yemeni affairs,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told reporters on Sept 14, saying the Houthis are “entirely independent actors who make their decisions based on their own interests”.
The Houthis seized Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014 at the outset of the civil war, driving the government to Aden in the south.
The following year, Saudi Arabia led a coalition to intervene on the side of the government, launching wave after wave of air strikes as the conflict escalated into one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
The UN’s migration agency said on Sept 14 the renewed fighting in the Arab world’s poorest country had forced 93,864 people to flee their homes. AFP