Saudi Arabia Vows Retaliation for The Houthis Attack which Injured Dozens
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| Members of the Houthi security force standing guard in Sanaa, Yemen, in July.Credit...Khaled Abdullah/Reuters |
New York Times
Saudi Arabia vowed on Tuesday to retaliate against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia after attacks by the group injured 73 civilians in the south of the kingdom, according to the Saudi authorities.
It is not clear when the Houthi attacks occurred. The Saudi foreign ministry said the strikes injured people in four regions, but did not specify when they happened.
The attacks follow weeks of escalating tension between the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally-recognized government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia. The two sides have been at war since 2014, when the Houthis seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.
Soon after, a Saudi-led military coalition led a bombing campaign to try to restore the government, plunging the impoverished nation into a devastating civil war until a fragile truce was reached in 2022.
The fighting has resumed amid the broader six-month war between the United States and Iran that has roiled energy markets by choking off shipping routes for exporting oil and gas from the Persian Gulf.
A return to war in Yemen would further threaten the stability of the Middle East and likely put even more pressure on global energy prices. The Houthis have vowed to attack Saudi energy infrastructure and disrupt the kingdom’s oil export routes in the Red Sea.
The price of Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, touched $99 a barrel following the latest attacks, its highest level since late July.
The spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen, Major General Turki Al-Maliki, said in a statement that the Houthi attacks were “a dangerous escalation.” He added that the coalition would take “all necessary measures and actions to respond to the sources of the threat.”
Ahmed Nagi, a senior analyst for Yemen at the International Crisis Group, said the country was “sliding back toward large-scale war.” De-escalation is “not impossible,” he said, “but realistically, it is becoming very difficult.”
On Tuesday, a Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said on social media that the militia’s recent attacks in Saudi Arabia were retaliatory. He accused the kingdom of launching 121 airstrikes in Yemen over the past three days, including one that he said struck a prison, burying inmates under the rubble.
Saudi Arabia has not commented on those claims. The Yemeni government appeared to assume responsibility for at least some of the airstrikes, saying on Monday that its warplanes had struck Houthi military reinforcements in the west of the country.
The Saudi energy ministry said in a statement on social media that the latest attacks on energy facilities had caused fires at some locations, and temporarily disrupted operations. The ministry did not say who carried out the strikes.
Fighting in Yemen intensified last week as the Houthis tried to capture territory that could give them more control over shipping routes through the Red Sea, according to local security officials. In July, the Houthis announced a blockade of Saudi shipping through the Red Sea, and has since launched several attacks on Saudi vessels in the region.
Saudi officials have tried to avoid getting pulled back into direct war with the Houthis, but “it is becoming impossible for them not to do so,” said Farea Al-Muslimi, a research fellow on the Middle East and North Africa at Chatham House, a research group. “I think today’s development speeds up the Saudi engagement in this war.”
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