Houthis fire missiles at Saudi Arabia, breaking years of calm

RIYADH: Yemen’s Houthi movement fired missiles at Saudi Arabia after accusing the kingdom of bombing an airport under their control on Monday, breaking a four-year truce in the conflict between the kingdom and the Iran-aligned group.

Saudi Arabia intercepted missiles “launched by the terrorist Houthi militia toward the southern region,” the spokesperson for a Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen said on X.

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said they had targeted the international airport in Saudi Arabia’s Abha, the capital of a mountainous southern region bordering Yemen where many Saudis escape the summer heat.

The strikes are the first claimed by the Houthis against Saudi Arabia since an informal truce went into effect in March 2022 following Houthi attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure.

Monday’s violence threatened renewed conflict on Saudi Arabia’s southern border after Iranian drone and missile attacks targeting its eastern regions and Riyadh subsided following an April truce in the Iran conflict.

The country’s size relative to other much smaller Gulf states meant it fared better during the war, continuing to export oil via a pipeline from the east to its west coast on the Red Sea, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.

A wider conflict with the Houthis, who have in the past targeted Red Sea shipping, could challenge that.

The Saudi government’s communication office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Iranian plane

Earlier Monday, the Houthi movement, which controls northern Yemen, accused Saudi Arabia of launching airstrikes against the international airport in Sanaa and had vowed to retaliate.  The Houthis called Monday’s attacks “blatant aggression” and said they had ended a period of de-escalation.

They also warned airlines against flying in Saudi airspace until the “siege” on Sanaa airport was lifted.

The strikes on Sanaa airport were claimed by Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is heavily backed by Riyadh, where many of its members reside.

Also read: Yemen’s Houthis threaten Saudi targets over Iran flight to Sanaa

The Yemeni government’s defence ministry said the runway at Sanaa International Airport had been targeted to prevent an Iranian plane from landing in violation of Yemeni sovereignty.

It said government forces would respond to any hostile aircraft violating Yemen’s airspace “by all available means”, and held Iran responsible.

An armed forces spokesman later said the aircraft had landed at Houthi-controlled Hodeidah airport.

It was unclear whether any attempt had been made to stop it from landing in Hodeidah, about 150 km (93 miles) southwest of Sanaa, on Yemen’s Red Sea coast.

Years-long war flares up

Another minister said the Houthis were detaining another plane, belonging to the International Committee of the Red Cross, at Sanaa airport. Hachem Osseiran, ICRC spokesperson for the Middle East, told Reuters all ICRC staff and the crew of the plane were safe and accounted for, declining to comment further.

In recent days an ICRC-mediated prisoner exchange deal between the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognized government fell through, with both sides exchanging blame in a sign of growing tension.

Yemen has faced civil war and proxy warfare from outside powers for more than a decade after the Houthis seized the capital and forced the internationally recognised government to relocate to the south.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015 against the Houthis, triggering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Violence flared again late last year after a separatist movement backed by the United Arab Emirates swept through territory in the south, splintering the Saudi-led coalition created to fight the Houthis.

Still, the 2022 truce between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis has largely held, despite regional escalation tied to the Israel-Gaza war, where the Houthis fired on numerous Red Sea ships, as well as the Iran war.