Saudi strikes kill 11 in Yemen as Houthis target Saudi cities
Houthi media report Saudi air strikes on Sanaa killing at least 11, as the rebels claim missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports and oil facilities.
Sanaa — Saudi air strikes killed at least 11 people in and around Yemen's capital Sanaa on Saturday, according to Houthi media, hours after the Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted two ballistic missiles fired towards the Saudi cities of Taif and Yanbu. The Houthis' Al-Masirah broadcaster reported a series of what it called "Saudi enemy air strikes", including one on a house that killed at least four people and a separate strike on a residential building for cement factory workers in Sanaa governorate that it said killed six women and one child.
The Hindu put the toll higher, reporting Houthi accusations that Riyadh killed 16 people in strikes on Sanaa and the Red Sea port city of Hodeida, where Al-Masirah said five members of one family died. None of the casualty figures could be independently verified, and Saudi authorities did not immediately confirm the strikes or the reported attacks on the kingdom.
The Houthis also claimed a far wider offensive. Their military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group struck King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, an Aramco facility in Yanbu, the Rabigh oil refinery, crude pumping stations and the East-West Pipeline, as well as airports in Dammam and Najran and an airbase in Khamis Mushait, France 24 reported. It was not clear whether any of those projectiles hit their targets or were intercepted.
Inside Yemen, the internationally recognised government's Interior Ministry said two Houthi missiles struck a coast guard headquarters in Aden and a third hit a coast guard building in the city's Tawahi district. Saree said his forces had targeted "Saudi enemy concentrations at the so-called Al-Nasr camp and the naval base in Aden", claiming Saudi officers were overseeing a mobilisation there. The Saudi-led coalition did not immediately comment on that assertion.
Saudi Arabia's civil defence agency briefly warned residents of "potential danger" in Taif, Yanbu, Mecca and Jeddah, instructing them to "proceed to the nearest safe place", before saying about 10 minutes later that the threat had passed. Earlier this month the Houthis warned airlines against using Saudi airspace, exempting only the skies over Mecca and Medina, and an attack on Riyadh's airport killed 13 people. This week the United States ordered non-essential embassy staff and their families to leave the kingdom, citing the Houthi threat.
The exchange has shattered a 2022 UN-brokered truce that had largely halted cross-border attacks in a war the Saudi-led coalition joined in 2015. Fighting resumed in July as the wider regional conflict, which erupted with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February, spread; the Houthis seized Yemen's entire Red Sea coast in an offensive last month. Egypt has suggested sending troops to help defend Saudi Arabia, while Britain and France have offered forces. For families in Sanaa and Hodeida counting their dead, and for Saudis woken by air raid alerts, the question now is whether any outside power can stop the next volley.
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