Saudi Arabia downs Houthi missiles targeting kingdom, officials say

By ISMAEL NAAR and SAEED AL-BATATI

The Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen said Thursday that it had shot down six ballistic missiles fired by the Iran-backed Houthi militia, in what appeared to be one of the largest cross-border attacks by the group since its conflict with Saudi Arabia spiraled back into war.

The missiles were aimed at the Saudi cities of Taif and Yanbu, Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki, a spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition, said on social media. “Escalations and violations by the terrorist Houthi militia will be dealt with firmly,” he added, without specifying where the missiles were intercepted.

Saudi authorities issued alerts Thursday warning of potential attacks in cities across Saudi Arabia, including Mecca, home to the holiest sites in Islam, before announcing that the danger had passed.

Yahya Saree, a spokesperson for the Houthi military, said it had launched dozens of ballistic missiles and drones at military sites in Jazan province in southern Saudi Arabia, near the Yemeni border, Houthi media reported.

The Saudi authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Houthi claims.

The Houthis’ ability to target Taif and Yanbu, cities that are far from the Yemeni border with Saudi Arabia, underscores how the militia’s arsenal and its ambitions have grown since the war between the two sides flared up in recent weeks. Since the hostilities resumed, the Houthis have accused the kingdom of launching hundreds of strikes on Yemen.

The barrage of missiles was launched at Saudi Arabia a day after celebrations began for the kingdom’s National Day, a holiday marked by public gatherings and events across the country.

For more than a decade, Yemen’s civil war has pitted the Houthis, a Shiite Muslim group that casts itself as an anti-imperialist movement trying to liberate the country, against the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia. A fragile truce was agreed to in 2022 and the fighting had mostly abated. But the conflict reignited this year in the wake of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, adding to broader Middle East tensions that have disrupted the global economy.

Two weeks ago, the Houthis captured the strategic port of Mokha from the Saudi-backed government, giving them control of Yemen’s west coast and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial choke point that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. Saudi Arabia relied on the waterway to export oil after Iran effectively blockaded the Strait of Hormuz during its war with the United States and Israel.

Saudi-backed Yemeni forces said Thursday that they had repelled a Houthi attempt to seize a stretch of highway known as the Heijat Al-Abed Road, the last route connecting the city of Taiz to the government-held south of the country and the port city of Aden. Residents said that the road was blocked for several hours overnight. A spokesperson for the Yemeni military, Col. Majed al-Nuzaili, said it killed a number of Houthi fighters during the clashes.

If the Houthis take control of the road, it would be devastating for Taiz, which hosts nearly 60% of the people who have sought safety in the city during the renewed clashes in western Yemen, according to Babar Baloch, a spokesperson for the United Nations refugee agency.

The ancient city of Taiz, the capital of a province of the same name, is perched among the mountains of central Yemen and has become a focus of the renewed fighting.

Control of the province is divided. Government forces hold the center of Taiz and parts of the south, while the Houthis are based in the surrounding mountains overlooking the city, which has allowed them to enforce a siege that has dragged on for years.