The Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen was fending off drones and cruise missiles fired toward Saudi Arabia on Monday, according to Saudi state media, the latest in a surge of attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi militia that have targeted the kingdom’s airports.
There was no immediate confirmation of whether the attacks were successfully intercepted. At least 13 people were killed when the Houthi militia struck an airport in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Saturday — the deadliest attack on a Persian Gulf country since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
The Saudi authorities said on Monday that operations would remain suspended at the airport in Riyadh after they reported another deadly attack on the facility on Sunday.
Fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis rapidly escalated last month when Houthi forces seized Yemen’s Red Sea coast, taking territory that sits alongside a strategic waterway for global trade and a key export route for Saudi oil. Saudi warplanes have been bombing Houthi positions in support of the internationally recognized Yemeni government, as its forces fight to retake the territory.
The Houthi militia has targeted Saudi oil facilities, and it attacked Riyadh on the eve of the WPC Energy Congress, an international gathering of oil officials and executives there.
“The events of recent weeks are serious,” Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman, the Saudi energy minister, told delegates at the event on Monday. “Our response must be equally serious.”
The Houthis are one of several militant groups that Iran is allied with across the region, and part of what the Islamic republic calls its “Axis of Resistance.” On Sunday, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, offered to mediate between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, warning that overlapping conflicts in the region had no military solution.
Mr. Araghchi spoke to his Saudi counterpart, Faisal bin Farhan, during a telephone call on Sunday night, according to a statement posted on social media by the Iranian minister’s office. “Insisting on a military approach and ignoring a political solution will further complicate the current situation,” the statement, posted on Mr. Araghchi’s Telegram channel, said. The foreign minister said Iran stood “ready to provide any assistance to help initiate a dialogue” between the two sides.
The Saudi government said that the two ministers had spoken, though it made no reference to a mediation offer from Iran.
The attacks on the Riyadh airport sparked an exchange of strikes, with Saudi-led forces targeting the airport in Sanaa, Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital, according to reports on Sunday in local news media affiliated with the group. The Houthi-run health ministry said that a child had also been killed in a strike on a residential building in Sanaa.
Saudi authorities have not commented on those assertions.
The Houthi militia has been fighting the internationally recognized government of Yemen, which is backed by Saudi Arabia, since 2014. Saudi Arabia pledged to restore the government, declaring war on the Houthis and initiating a bombing campaign that triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. A fragile truce agreed in 2022 has unraveled in recent months.
Emboldened by regional instability, the battle-hardened Houthis have far less to lose against their more powerful, wealthier enemies, even as they imperil Saudi Arabia’s ambitions to transform itself into a global hub of business and tourism.
Many oil industry leaders — including the chief executives of Exxon Mobil and BP — canceled their trips to Saudi Arabia for this week’s gathering in Riyadh, according to two industry officials who were not authorized to discuss executive schedules.
The conflict has stoked further upheaval in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region, which was already reeling from the economic fallout of the U.S.-Iran war.
American and Iranian officials appear braced for the possibility that their stalemated regional conflict could spill back into the open, with the Pentagon drawing up new plans for strikes. Iran’s national security adviser, Mohsen Rezaei, threatened on Sunday that if fighting were to resume, Iranian forces would target digital infrastructure in the Gulf, including data centers, cables, and artificial intelligence facilities.
Though the Houthis have benefited from years of military and financial support from Iran, regional experts have long described them as among the most independent of the country’s allied militant forces, with ambitions distinct from Tehran’s.
Iran has been able at critical moments to curb the Houthis, said Farea Al-Muslimi, a Yemen and Persian Gulf specialist at Chatham House, a London-based research institute.
When Beijing mediated a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023, he said, Tehran promised to stop Houthi cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia, and succeeded in doing so until the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran.
Mr. Al-Muslimi added that while the Houthis were largely autonomous on matters inside Yemen, they coordinated with Tehran on international strategy. “The Iranians know if they want to actually stop it, they can,” he said.
Iranian officials cite the widening conflict in the region as a sign that their Gulf Arab neighbors should re-evaluate their longtime alliances with the United States. Iran and its allies have frequently targeted U.S. bases on Gulf territory during the war.
Iran has been urging the Gulf countries to engage with it diplomatically, part of an effort to sideline the United States as the principal power broker in the region, and drive out its military forces.
“We have always supported strengthening interaction and cooperation among the countries of the region,” Esmail Baghaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, said in a news conference on Monday. He urged a strengthening of regional relations to create “a secure region free from the destructive interference of external actors.”
Sanam Mahoozi and Lisa Friedman contributed reporting.
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