The Yemeni Ansar Allah movement—also known by the surname of its leaders, the Houthis—which is aligned with Iran—reported yesterday, Wednesday, that Saudi Arabia had carried out dozens of new airstrikes in Yemen, hours after Riyadh accused the rebels of launching a drone attack against the holy city of Mecca—a claim the rebels denied.
Riyadh, the main ally of the Yemeni government recognized by the international community, has been suffering large-scale attacks by the rebel movement since the beginning of the month, as the war reignited in July, opening a new front in the Middle East conflict.
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The Houthis attacked airports in Saudi Arabia
At the same time, Ansar Allah has inflicted heavy defeats on Yemeni government forces, capturing virtually the entire western coast of the country along the Red Sea last week and strengthening its control over the strategically important Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects Europe to Asia via the Suez Canal.
The movement’s spokesman on military affairs, Yahya Saria, stated yesterday that 40 Saudi airstrikes had been carried out in 24 hours in the provinces of Taiz, Marib, and Hodeidah. He had already mentioned hundreds of bombings by Riyadh’s forces in recent days.
The kingdom generally does not respond to announcements of this kind.
In an earlier statement, the Riyadh-led military coalition reported that Saudi Arabia’s air defense system destroyed an unmanned aerial vehicle on Tuesday that had been launched “the Houthi terrorist paramilitary organization” before it “entered the no-fly zone” over Mecca, which welcomes millions of pilgrims every year, both Sunnis and Shiites.
“Red Line”
“The security of the two holy Islamic mosques and their visitors is a red line,” he warned, while the court condemned the “cowardly” attack.
“I won’t hide the fact that we’re afraid (…) Aren’t they Muslims?! They’re targeting the holiest city there is,” said a resident of Mecca, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We live in a region where anything can happen,” said another resident, who described seeing people, in a state of panic, “rush to the windows to see what was happening.”
Many Arab governments condemned the alleged attack, including Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. The secretary-general of the Arab League called it an “incident of extreme gravity,” while the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) referred to “heinous attacks.”
“We strongly condemn the drone attack carried out by the Houthis against the holy city of Mecca,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said yesterday, emphasizing in a statement Ankara’s “support” for “national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of Saudi Arabia.”
The Shiite movement denied that it had targeted the holy city, with its spokesperson assuring that the targets of its attacks are oil facilities and military bases, “which are located far from holy sites.”
Ansar Allah announced that it attacked a facility belonging to the Saudi oil giant ARAMCO in Yanbu yesterday, on the Red Sea coast, as well as an air base in Hamis Musait. It also claimed to have shot down a Saudi fighter jet.
Meanwhile, fierce fighting raged between forces loyal to the internationally recognized government and the Houthis in the province of al-Jawf, in northern Yemen, not far from the border with Saudi Arabia. Footage from the French Press Agency shows soldiers in armored combat vehicles moving through the desert and targeting enemy positions with machine guns.
With its territory under attack and its ships threatened at sea—on one side by Ansar Allah in the Red Sea, and on the other by Iran in the Gulf— Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of crude oil, finds itself in a tight spot, with potentially very significant consequences for the global economy.
Oil prices remain above $100 per barrel
These developments are keeping oil prices high. North Sea Brent, the benchmark for international crude, was trading yesterday at nearly $106 per barrel, marking a slight decline but remaining well above levels seen before the outbreak of war in the Middle East.
Against this backdrop, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, is stepping up his diplomatic efforts.
He traveled to Egypt on Tuesday, as Cairo fears that its revenue from the Suez Canal will plummet due to threats to shipping traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. And, with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sitti by his side, he called for “guarantees for free and safe navigation” in the Red Sea.
Riyadh is seeking to secure U.S. support; however, according to a report by the American website Axios, which cited sources within Donald Trump’s administration, the U.S. president refused to order airstrikes against the Houthis, as requested by the Saudi crown prince.
For its part, Ansar Allah asserts that there is no threat to international shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — but adds that it prohibits Saudi ships from passing through.
More than 100,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in Yemen since the start of Ansar Allah’s deadly offensive earlier this month, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) emphasized on Tuesday.
The previous phase of the war in Yemen, which lasted from 2014 to 2022, triggered a humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions in the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula.
Source: Protothema.gr
