Houthi strikes hit four Saudi cities, wounding 73 and setting oil sites ablaze

Khamis Mushait, Saudi Arabia. Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthis attacked four cities in southern Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, wounding 73 people and setting oil installations ablaze, Saudi authorities said. The strikes marked what appeared to be a major expansion of the six-month-old Middle East war.

Targets and damage

The Houthis, who control most of Yemen’s populated areas, including the capital, said they had launched a broad operation deep inside Saudi territory.

They said drones and missiles struck a Saudi airbase in Khamis Mushait and assets belonging to Saudi state oil company in Abha, Najran and Jazan.

NASA satellite images showed a thick cloud of black smoke over the Jazan refinery and a column of white smoke rising from an oil distribution centre in Abha.

Saudi authorities reported fires at the sites and said women and children were among the 73 people injured. The reported number of casualties suggested the attacks were among the largest against Saudi Arabia since the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran in February.

No confirmed ground images from the targeted Saudi cities were available, and witnesses could not be reached in the country, where media is tightly controlled.

Regional tensions

After a month of calm in August, fighting in the Gulf has resumed, with Iran and the United States exchanging fire and global oil prices moving back towards the $100-a-barrel level reached at the war’s peak.

Houthi attacks on southwestern Saudi Arabia could deepen the conflict’s global economic impact by disrupting Middle East energy supplies beyond the blockaded Strait of Hormuz.

Saudi Arabia has led an Arab coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen for more than a decade. The conflict had eased in recent years, but a ceasefire has broken down, with the Houthis threatening shipping at the mouth of the Red Sea.

Yemen offensive

In recent days, Saudi-backed Yemeni forces from a government based in the south launched a multipronged offensive on Houthi-held areas after the Houthis attempted to advance on government-held positions.

The government, which the Houthis drove from the capital 12 years ago, said it aims to recapture all territory held by the group.

“The coalition will take all necessary operational measures to deter this terrorist militia and resolutely confronts its hostile approach,” Major General Turki al-Malki, spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition, said in a statement on X.