Saudi Arabia says 73 wounded as Houthis attack civilian and energy sites

Saudi Arabia has accused Yemen’s Houthi rebels of launching attacks on civilian and economic sites in the kingdom, wounding at least 73 civilians, including women and children.

The accusation came on Tuesday as fighting intensified in Yemen, where the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government has launched a counteroffensive to retake territory from the Iran-backed Houthis.

Major-General Turki al-Maliki, the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, said in a statement that the Houthi attacks had hit civilian and economic sites in the provinces of Abha, Khamis Mushait, Jizan and Najran.

He did not specify when the attacks took place.

Al-Maliki described the attacks as a “dangerous escalation” and a “blatant violation” of Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty, warning that they posed a direct threat to the kingdom’s citizens and residents.

He said the coalition would take “all necessary operational measures” to confront the attacks and act against the sources of the threat.

The Saudi Ministry of Energy said in a separate statement that several “energy sector facilities and installations” in southern areas of the kingdom were hit early on Tuesday.

The attacks wounded a “number of citizens and residents” and sparked “fires at several locations”, forcing a “temporary halt in some operations”, the statement said.

Saudi’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that Riyadh would “take all necessary measures to defend its sovereignty”, demanding the Houthis halt their attacks.

Russia also weighed in on the Houthis’ latest attacks on Saudi Arabia.

During talks with his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia were counterproductive and were damaging the global economy.

Lavrov said it was unacceptable to resolve these issues by military means.

The Houthis released a statement later on Tuesday, saying the attacks were in response to more than 120 strikes launched by Saudi Arabia on Yemen in the last three days.

“Yemeni armed forces carried out a large-scale, long-range military operation … using dozens of ballistic missiles and drones,” the military’s spokesman Yahya Saree said.

Houthi-linked media also accused Saudi Arabia of carrying out a series of strikes in Taiz province.

“The Saudi aggression launched a series of raids on Al-Waziyah district” in Taiz province, Almasirah television claimed.

Earlier, the group had accused Saudi Arabia of carrying out an air strike on a prison in al-Hazm, in the northern al-Jawf governorate, killing at least seven people. It said the “ongoing Saudi aggression against Yemen will not go unpunished”.

Riyadh has not commented on the allegation.

Yemen has been mired in conflict since the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa in 2014, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention the following year.

Fighting between the two sides largely halted after a United Nations-brokered truce in 2022, but resumed following the war that the United States and Israel launched against Iran in February.

Hostilities restarted in July when the Houthis launched missiles and drones towards Saudi Arabia’s Abha international airport, following an attack on Sanaa airport. Later that month, the Houthis announced a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia and began attacking Saudi-linked shipping in the Red Sea.

On Thursday, the Houthis launched a major offensive, attempting to advance through western Taiz and southern Hodeidah towards the port city of al-Makha (Mocha) along the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea.

Fighting was initially concentrated west of Taiz and south of Hodeidah, but has now spread to the provinces of al-Dhalea, Marib, al-Jawf and al-Bayda, as the government seeks to stretch Houthi forces and increase pressure on the group.

The World Health Organization said some 1,078 people have been killed or wounded since August 24, while more than 21,000 people have been displaced since Thursday.