Saudi, Houthis edge towards war as Middle East conflict spills over

Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis appeared on the brink of renewed war after the fighters claimed their first large-scale strikes on the kingdom since 2022, analysts and a Gulf source said.

The Houthis fired missiles at an airport in the southern Saudi Arabian city of Abha late Monday, after the Yemeni government hit Sanaa airport to divert a flight from Iran that had onboard a Houthi delegation returning from the late supreme leader's funeral.

The Houthis have blamed the government's backer Riyadh for the attack.


For some analysts, the exchange likely marked a new era of hostilities and the end of a four-year uneasy truce that ended attacks between Yemen's government and the Saudi-led coalition that backs it, and the Houthis.

"I think it's huge," said Farea Al‑Muslimi, a research fellow at the London-based Chatham House think-tank, adding that the attacks "put an official closure to the (Yemeni) truce" that had mostly held despite expiring.

The truce had largely halted a conflict that killed tens of thousands of people and triggered a major humanitarian crisis, but ultimately failed to dislodge the Houthis from power.

A source in the Gulf familiar with the situation said Saudi Arabia was prepared to hit back after the Houthis targeted the kingdom's infrastructure.

"Saudi civilian infrastructure is a redline," the source told AFP.

Following Monday's exchanges, the Houthis boasted of firing ballistic missiles and drones at the kingdom and warned airlines against using Saudi airspace "until the blockade on Sanaa International Airport is lifted".

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen later said its air defence forces had intercepted the projectiles.

Years of war

Hostilities had been mounting for days as the Houthis accused Saudi Arabia earlier this month of targeting an Iranian plane that landed in Sanaa and took off carrying the delegation headed to Ali Khamenei's funeral.

The outbreak of fighting is an example of how the war between the United States and Iran has spilled over and risks further destabilising the Middle East and rattling the region's precarious fault lines.

Iran had hit its Gulf neighbours repeatedly during the war, and now appears to have challenged -- through its Houthi allies -- the Saudi-led coalition's hegemony over Yemeni skies by sending a plane directly from Tehran and back without requesting permission.

For more than a decade, aircraft entering Yemeni airspace have needed prior clearance from the Saudi-led coalition that backs the government and says it enforces the restriction at its request.

The Houthis have been at war with Yemen's government since 2014.

Saudi Arabia entered the conflict in 2015, forming an international coalition intended to defeat the Houthis.

The rebels continue to control Yemen's capital Sanaa and swathes of the north, including most population centres, while the internationally recognised government holds much of the south.

For months, they have issued repeated warnings that if their forces were drawn into the war between Iran and the US, they would act decisively.

Although the rebels had fired at shipping they claimed to be linked to Israel in the Red Sea during the Gaza war, they did not hit targets in the Gulf and have largely stayed out of the US-Iran conflict.

Red Sea stakes

Mohammed al-Basha, of the US-based risk advisory Basha Report, said both parties remained engaged in talks despite the latest escalation -- though they were preparing for war, in case talks fail.

"Discussions on the Yemen file have continued without interruption since this latest round of escalation," he told AFP.

In a propaganda video posted before they claimed the latest attacks, the rebels showed satellite imagery of Saudi airports and ports with a target on them, using the hashtag "retaliation is coming".

From their mountainous strongholds overlooking the Red Sea, the Houthis could halt maritime traffic in the waterway and target Saudi export terminals on the coastline that provide millions of barrels of oil a day to the world.

"We will see further Saudi attacks on the Houthis. I would not be surprised if the Houthis showed up to the Red Sea," added Al‑Muslimi.

The move could pack an especially heavy economic punch, with US President Donald Trump on Monday announcing plans to blockade Iran's ports following days of tit-for-tat strikes that sent global crude prices soaring.

For ordinary Yemenis, the outbreak of any further fighting after years of hardship remained a bleak prospect.

"What frightens me is that war could break out suddenly at any moment and continue without stopping," Mohammed, a 37-year-old restaurant worker in Hodeida, told AFP.

"But when that might happen is unclear."