Egypt is ready to provide Saudi Arabia with the support it needs to defend its security and stability, the presidency said on Sunday.
Earlier in the day, the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis said two officers were killed when their helicopter crashed near the Yemen border, after the rebel group claimed it shot the aircraft down.
The coalition blamed a “technical malfunction” for the helicopter crash, which inflicted its first military fatalities since the long-running conflict with the Houthis reignited in July.
The incident comes a week after strikes by the Houthis killed 13 people at Riyadh’s international airport, the deadliest attack in Saudi Arabia in more than a decade.
An AH-6i reconnaissance helicopter belonging to the Saudi Ministry of National Guard crashed “inside Saudi territory in Najran Region due to a technical malfunction”, coalition spokesman Turki al-Malki said, according to the official Saudi Press Agency.
“The accident resulted in the martyrdom of its aircrew, consisting of two officers.”
Late on Saturday, Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree claimed the group had “downed an Apache helicopter belonging to the Saudi enemy” in the same area.
Egypt ready to give ‘all necessary and possible forms of support’
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had requested an urgent parliament session to authorise the military, one of the region’s largest and most powerful, to help defend Saudi Arabia if the kingdom requested its support.
“Egypt will provide Saudi Arabia with all necessary and possible forms of support to defend its security and stability, protect its resources, territorial integrity and Islamic holy sites,” the Egyptian presidency said in a statement on Sunday.
It followed a meeting of Egypt’s National Defence Council chaired by Sisi and attended by the parliamentary speaker, the prime minister and the army chief.
Parliament was due to hold the urgent session at 1pm (3pm PKT) to vote on authorising the request.
Sisi said in a speech on Saturday that Egypt would act in accordance with guidance from Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who visited Sisi on Sept 15, after fighting in Yemen reignited.
After an uneasy, four-year truce, Yemen’s conflict has surged back to life and intensified when the group seized strategic territory along the Red Sea coast last month.
The Houthis have hit Saudi targets including tankers in the Red Sea, oil facilities and Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport.
The Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally recognised government has launched repeated air raids on Houthi territory.
The coalition said overnight that it intercepted two drones in the Riyadh area and a third over the oil-rich Eastern Province. Saudi authorities had earlier issued a threat alert in the capital.
Two ballistic missiles “launched by the terrorist Houthi militia towards Khamis Mushait” were intercepted in the kingdom’s south, the coalition added.
On Saturday, the Houthis reported that Saudi strikes killed 12 people in Yemen, including three children.
The Houthis have declared a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia and captured territory around the Bab al-Mandeb strait, the Red Sea chokepoint and vital export route for Saudi oil since Iran blockaded the Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz.