Houthis Say Saudi Warplanes Struck Yemen After Attacks on Oil Sites
Yemen's Houthi movement said Tuesday that Saudi warplanes hit targets in Taiz and Marib provinces in what it described as retaliation for a wave of rebel attacks on energy installations in the kingdom. Almasirah TV, the Houthi-run channel, said the strikes came down near front lines where Yemeni government forces and Houthi fighters have been locked in some of the deadliest standoffs of the renewed war. There was no immediate Saudi comment.
The Houthi barrage that prompted the response came overnight, with Saudi authorities saying it set fire to oil sites, forced temporary shutdowns and wounded 73 people. Saudi Arabia's civil defense agency briefly warned of “potential danger” in three areas bordering Yemen before lifting the alerts. Saudi outlets carried footage of buildings scarred by shrapnel and streets covered in broken glass.
The Houthis said they had fired dozens of ballistic missiles at Abha International Airport, King Khalid air base and Aramco facilities in Abha and Jizan. An energy ministry source told the Saudi Press Agency that “several energy sector facilities and installations” in the south were targeted, causing fires and a temporary halt in some operations. Jizan, on the Red Sea coast just north of Yemen's border, hosts one of the country's biggest oil refineries, capable of processing 400,000 barrels per day; according to maritime data firm Kpler, it had already been out of action for weeks after previous Houthi attacks.
This round of violence grew out of the collapse in July of a four-year truce between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed government. The Houthis triggered the breakdown by allowing an Iranian plane to land in defiance of Saudi control of Yemeni airspace; Yemen's government answered with an airstrike on the airport. Since then, the rebels have moved toward the Bab al-Mandab strait, a critical Red Sea chokepoint that has taken on added importance to Riyadh after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and choked Gulf exports from the other direction. A Houthi ground push last week has killed more than 500 people, most of them fighters, according to an AFP tally drawn from sources on both sides: at least 216 government troops, 278 Houthi fighters and 29 civilians.
The Houthis said the overnight attacks on Saudi oil targets were also a response to a Saudi bombing of a prison the previous day that killed 11 people and left 20 inmates missing. Video from the scene showed rescuers digging through rubble and carrying away bodies wrapped in blankets. The account could not be independently confirmed.
The UN secretary-general and the European Union condemned the attacks on Saudi territory, and the Red Cross called for de-escalation. Saudi Arabia's top diplomat, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said in Moscow that the door was still open to diplomacy, but made clear the kingdom would defend itself. The Saudi-led coalition, which has backed Yemen's government since 2015, said it was ready to “respond to the sources of the threat and neutralize its danger.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted Tuesday that Tehran was behind the assault. “Behind some of this is clearly the Iranian hand,” he said. Analysts are split over how directly the Houthis take orders from Iran, but the fighting has drawn the region's two main powers deeper into a confrontation that international mediators have tried for years to contain.
Andreas Krieg, a Gulf analyst at King's College London, said the Houthis are pushing Saudi Arabia to show its hand. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has spent years trying to extricate the kingdom from Yemen's civil war, but restraint now carries a different risk. “The Houthis are testing exactly where Riyadh's true red line lies,” Krieg said. He expected Saudi Arabia's initial response to remain calibrated—airstrikes, intelligence sharing and support for Yemeni government forces—but warned that further attacks on Saudi cities would make it increasingly hard to hold back.