Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis said on Monday that they had attacked Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport, an Aramco refinery, and other targets in Saudi Arabia. The claim came as the Saudi-led coalition said it had destroyed Houthi military sites on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, and as Riyadh and its Yemeni government allies began a campaign to retake all territory held by the group.
Coalition spokesman Turki Al-Malki said on X that naval forces had hit Houthi targets in Hodeida, destroying weapons depots and facilities storing booby-trapped boats and naval mines, and had stopped a planned attack on waterways in the southern Red Sea. The Yemeni military said it carried out more than 1,000 strikes and launched an offensive on the Houthi-held capital, Sanaa, while the coalition said 100 warplanes flew sorties at dawn. Loud explosions shook Riyadh on Monday evening as the fighting escalated.
Pakistan and Turkey pledged to send troops to Saudi Arabia after an emergency meeting in Riyadh held under a joint defense agreement signed in August, which commits the three countries to come to each other’s aid if attacked. Their statement did not say what role the troops would play. A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply concerned by the sharp escalation in fighting” and condemned continued Houthi cross-border attacks on the kingdom.
The conflict is adding pressure on oil markets. The Houthis have targeted Saudi oil infrastructure and tankers in the Red Sea, and a Saudi energy sector source told AFP that a Sunday attack had again halted pumping on the East-West pipeline to the Red Sea. That route has been a key outlet for Saudi exports since Iran blockaded the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the wider Middle East war. Saudi Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser told the Energy Intelligence Forum in London that global oil stockpiles were “scarily thin.”
Last month the Houthis seized long stretches of coastline along the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a chokepoint for oil and cargo shipping, and they have declared a maritime blockade on Saudi ships. Yemeni military sources said pro-government forces had cut the only supply route to the Houthi-held port city of Mocha. Yemen’s civil war began in 2014, with Saudi Arabia intervening the following March. A 2022 ceasefire held until July this year, and the UN says the renewed fighting has displaced more than 184,000 people.
