Saudi Arabia Strikes Houthi Targets as Red Sea War Escalates

By Timour Azhari and Menna AlaaElDin

RIYADH, Oct 13 (Reuters) – Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthis said Saudi Arabia was attacking the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Tuesday after a Saudi-led coalition warned civilians to stay away from an oil depot on the city’s outskirts, part of a rapidly escalating war between the sides.

The Houthis have for a week been targeting Saudi airports, including a strike on Riyadh on Saturday that killed 13 people, in retaliation for the kingdom’s backing of government forces against the Houthis in Yemen’s reignited civil war.

Houthi-run Al-Masirah television reported that the Saudi-led coalition had targeted the Yemen Petroleum Company’s Sabah central station, a fuel depot on the outskirts of Sanaa.

The coalition said in a statement on Tuesday evening that it attacked the station and other sites in an operation aimed at “neutralizing the capabilities of Houthis” to threaten the kingdom, Yemen and international waterways.

It said the Iran-aligned group was using the sites in Sanaa, Hodeidah and Dhamar to “supply its arsenal of missiles and drones” to attack Saudi Arabia and commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

YPC said the facility did not currently hold any stocks of petroleum products and that targeting it did not affect oil reserves or supply chains.

However, the Houthis had earlier threatened a “harsh and painful” response to any strikes on Sanaa, with spokesperson Yahya Saree saying targets could include the Saudi Aramco headquarters in Dhahran and an oil refinery in Riyadh.

The group renewed earlier warnings it had issued to oil workers in Saudi Arabia, telling them to stay away from sites that could be potential targets.

The Saudi cabinet, chaired by de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, issued a statement saying the Houthis would face consequences for their repeated attacks on the kingdom.

Saturday’s ballistic missile strike on Riyadh airport was the deadliest in Saudi Arabia for a decade, with further attacks grounding flights across the country even as it hosts a major energy conference.

REIGNITED YEMEN WAR

Saudi Arabia resumed its military campaign in Yemen in support of the internationally recognized government in a bid to reverse the Houthis’ sudden gains last month when they swept down the Red Sea coast to the critical Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

The strait, the southern gateway to the Red Sea, has become a more vital route for Saudi and other global energy supplies since the start of the Iran war in February, when Tehran closed the Hormuz Strait leading from the Gulf to the Indian Ocean.

While a government offensive aimed at driving back the Houthis beginning a week ago pushed them off the area closest to the strait, the group remains embedded nearby and has made gains of its own around the city of Taiz this month.

Saudi Arabia has been seeking wider support from allies for its campaign against the Houthis and to help it ward off their missile and drone attacks.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday that Ankara would stand by the kingdom, the Turkish presidency said.

Turkey and Pakistan signed a mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia this summer, though Turkey still needs to ratify the treaty in parliament.

US President Donald Trump also spoke to Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday, he told reporters, adding that the Houthis were “behaving very badly.”

He said he may ask Erdogan to intervene in support of Saudi interests.

Washington, Saudi Arabia’s strongest ally and longtime security guarantor, has so far rebuffed Saudi efforts to bring it directly into the war against the Houthis.

The Yemen conflict has resumed as a spillover from the wider US-Iran war that began with the US-Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic starting on February 28.

Iran, Riyadh’s longtime arch regional rival, has offered to mediate between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, its foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said on Sunday in statements reiterated by the ministry on Monday.

(Reporting by Timour Azhari, Menna Alaa El Din, Yasmine Ghania, Tala Ramadan and Yomna Ehab; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Andrew Cawthorne and Cynthia Osterman)