Yemen’s Houthis launched fresh attacks on Saudi Arabia and the seat of Yemen’s internationally recognised government on Saturday after blaming the kingdom for strikes that the Iran-backed group said killed 17 people.
Saudi Arabia and the government it backs in Yemen have come under sustained attack in recent weeks from the Houthis as a years-long truce broke down in the summer, shifting the focus of the wider US-Iran war that erupted in February.
Over the past 24 hours, the Yemeni fighters said they targeted three Saudi airports including the international airport in capital Riyadh, energy installations, a pipeline and an air base.
Military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group launched missiles at “King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, the capital of the Saudi enemy, in two phases”, the airports in Dammam in the east and Najran in the south.
The international airport on Saturday however said it would resume domestic and international flights “effective Sunday” in a post on X, after it was closed following several deadly attacks this month.
The Houthis also launched attacks on the southern Khamis Mushait air base as well as “crude oil pumping stations and the crude oil pipeline from east to west”.
The Saudi civil defence agency said it had also responded to falling debris in the Mecca and Medina regions on Saturday after intercepting two Houthi missiles. The Houthis denied targeting the cities, the two holiest in Islam, calling the Saudi claim a “huge lie”.
The Houthis also fired at the southern Yemeni city of Aden, the interim seat of the Saudi-backed government, saying they targeted a naval base and military camp overseen by Saudi forces.
Authorities said the coast guards headquarters and a second building of theirs as well as Aden airport had been targeted.
The fresh attack claims came after the Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV channel accused the kingdom of separate strikes in Yemen that killed more than a dozen people. Riyadh has not claimed the alleged strikes.
The Houthi broadcaster said a strike on a house in Sanaa killed at least four people, another at a residential building for cement factory workers killed eight and another outside the city of Hodeida killed five from the same family.
Yemen’s civil war, pitting the Iran-backed Houthis against the Saudi-supported and internationally recognised government, had been dormant since a ceasefire in 2022, but erupted again in July as the wider Middle East war roiled the region.
Diplomats evacuated
Earlier Saturday, the Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted two missiles targeting Saudi cities Taif and Yanbu in the kingdom’s west.
Saudi Arabia’s civil defence had broadcast warnings of “potential danger” for four western regions, including Taif and Yanbu as well as Mecca, home to Islam’s holiest city.
The warning was lifted minutes later.
The group has also targeted the kingdom’s oil infrastructure as well as its airports and tankers.
Yanbu is a major oil export hub on the Red Sea coast that has allowed Riyadh to bypass Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz for much of its crude exports via the east-west pipeline.
An attack on Riyadh airport earlier this month killed 13 people and forced it to shut, while this week the US ordered non-essential embassy staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia, citing the Houthi threat.
Riyadh leads a military coalition that first intervened in 2015 in the conflict, which has devastated Yemen and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The dramatic escalation in Yemen, with the Houthis taking control of the entire Red Sea coast in a lightning offensive last month, has further destabilised the region and disrupted oil markets.
In July, a fragile 2022 truce fell apart after the Houthis allowed an Iranian plane to land in Yemen’s capital Sanaa in defiance of Saudi control over Yemeni airspace, setting off a spate of attacks.
The Houthis then declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and began hitting its ships, territory and oil facilities, before launching a major offensive in September in which they seized Yemeni government-held territory along the Red Sea coast.
In response, the Houthis have also reported frequent Saudi strikes targeting areas under their control.
Egypt has suggested sending troops to help defend Saudi Arabia, while Britain and France have offered their forces to protect the Gulf kingdom.
On Saturday the US Mission to the United Arab Emirates and US embassy in Riyadh said Washington’s travel advisories for both Gulf countries were “updated to reflect an increase in potential armed attacks by the Iranian-supported Houthis”.