Houthi Claim Missile Strikes on Southern Saudi Arabia
(Bloomberg) -- The Houthis claimed to have struck Saudi Arabia with missiles on Saturday morning, as the Iran-backed group deepens its involvement in the Middle
(Bloomberg) -- The Houthis claimed to have struck Saudi Arabia with missiles on Saturday morning, as the Iran-backed group deepens its involvement in the Middle East war. Saudi authorities issued emergency warnings for the provinces of Jazan and Yanbu around 6:10 a.m. local time, asking people to seek shelter. The government lifted the warning for Jazan shortly after, stating on X that the “danger has passed.” The Islamist militants, based in Yemen, said they targeted the southern Saudi city of Jizan — on the Red Sea coast and in Jazan province — on Saturday, according to a post on Telegram from their main media outlet.
The group said Riyadh had targeted the Yemeni governorate of Hodeida, which the Houthis control, on Friday. The Houthis announced several days ago they would blockade Saudi ports and threatened to strike any ship visiting them. Soon after, it attacked two Saudi-linked oil tankers in the Red Sea, hitting at least one of them. The escalation compounds an already severe squeeze on regional energy flows. Maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, normally the conduit for a fifth of global crude, remains largely paralyzed by hostilities between the US and Iran. Any sustained disruption to Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea export routes, through which it’s sending millions of barrels a day, mainly from the port of Yanbu, would likely push up oil prices even more.
Brent crude has soared around 27% in the past two weeks with US-Iran skirmishes worsening and the Houthis effectively opening a second front in the war. The global benchmark closed on Friday at $96.78 a barrel. The Houthi blockade is a response, the group says, to recent strikes by the kingdom on the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. The Houthis captured Sanaa in 2014 near the start of Yemen’s ongoing civil war. The survived a roughly seven-year bombing campaign led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and still control areas containing most of Yemen’s population. The Saudis and Houthis agreed a truce a few years ago, but it’s been shaky and tensions have risen since the US and Israel launched a war on Iran this year.
Iran is the main funder and sponsor of the Houthis, though the group is more autonomous than other proxies of Tehran such as Hezbollah in Lebanon. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
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