CAIRO — A wave of Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia Tuesday wounded more than 70 people and ignited fires at several oil facilities and utilities in the kingdom's southern region, authorities said, a major escalation in the renewed conflict between an important U.S. ally and the Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen.
The attacks come after weeks of escalating clashes between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen, which shattered a four-year truce in the country's civil war.
The flare-up delivered a new jolt to a region already destabilized by nearly three years of wars and brings more uncertainty for the global economy. The fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis threatens to squeeze shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a critical route of the Arabian Peninsula for oil and global trade. It also comes at a time when the Iran war has nearly halted shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway that moved about one-fifth of the world's oil before the war.
Fighting has raged on multiple fronts including Yemen's west coast, with government forces saying they have made territorial gains in the provinces of Hodeida, Taiz and Baydah. The Houthis have also launched attacks on Saudi oil facilities and tankers in the Red Sea.
Houthi attacks hit oil facilities in southern Saudi Arabia
The attacks early Tuesday hit "civilian and economic facilities" in the Saudi cities of Abha, Jazan, Najran and Khamis Mushait, said Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, a spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen.
Al-Malki said the attacks wounded 73 people, including women and children. He didn't provide further details.
The attacks ignited fires at several oil facilities and utilities in Saudi Arabia's southern region, the kingdom's Energy Ministry said in a statement. Operations at the oil facilities and utilities were temporarily suspended, it said.
The southern region houses major oil facilities, including a 400,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery in Jazan, which is one of Saudi Arabia's largest. The Houthis had previously attacked the Abha airport.
The ministry said firefighters were battling the fires Tuesday morning.
Al-Malki called the attacks a "serious escalation" and a "flagrant violation of the kingdom's sovereignty, and a direct threat to the security and safety of its citizens and residents."
He vowed retaliation, saying that the Saudi-led coalition "will take all necessary operational measures to deter the terrorist Houthi militia with utmost resolve."
The Houthis claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they were in response to recent Saudi attacks on the rebels across Yemen.
In a prerecorded video statement, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, the rebels' military spokesman, said they fired dozens of ballistic missiles and drones at oil and economic facilities, as well as an air base in southern Saudi Arabia.
He said they attacked Jazan City for Primary and Downstream Industries, a major industrial and logistics hub on Saudi Arabia's southwestern Red Sea coast. The rebels also attacked Aramco facilities in Najran and Abha, as well as King Khalid Air Base in Khamis Mushait.
Saree blamed Saudi Arabia for the escalation, warning that "every aggression against our country and people will be met with a firm response."
Nasruddin Amer, deputy head of the Houthi media office overseeing the Saba news agency run by the rebels, took to social media to laud the attacks.
"The Saudi enemy has to understand that the time for committing crimes and massacres against the Yemeni people without response, deterrence or paying a price has ended," he said.
The attacks came hours after the rebels blamed Saudi Arabia for an airstrike that hit a prison in Yemen's northern province of Jawf. At least seven people, including a child, were killed and seven others were wounded in the strike in the Yemeni city of Hazem, the Houthis said.
Fighting forces about 18,500 people to flee their homes in Yemen
The latest escalation stemmed from a Houthi attempt to fly a plane from Tehran to Yemen's capital, Sanaa, challenging a decade-long air and naval blockade by the Saudi-led coalition. A coalition airstrike struck the runway of the Sanaa airport, preventing the landing of the flight.
The Houthis responded with missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, and a blockade of Saudi shipping in the Red Sea, ending a 2022 truce that had largely halted fighting between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition.
The rebels also launched attacks on Saudi-allied forces inside Yemen, prompting government forces to respond with attacks on the Houthis across Yemen's west coast and elsewhere in the country.
Government forces reclaimed territory from the Houthis in the provinces of Hodeida and Taiz, and attacked the rebels in the northern province of Jawf as well as the central provinces of Marib and Bayda.
The flare-up displaced about 18,500 people in Taiz and Hodeida in southwestern Yemen, further pressuring communities in southern Taiz and the West Coast, according to the International Organization for Migration.
"Families are arriving with nothing: no shelter, no food, no way to know if it's safe to go back," said Abdusattor Esoev, IOM Yemen's Chief of Mission. "Many of these are people who have already been displaced once, twice, even four times before."
Yemen's civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen and forced the government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year to try to restore the government to power.
The civil war has killed at least 150,000 people, according to U.N. estimates, and at times pushed the country to the brink of famine.
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