Saudi Arabia vowed on Tuesday to retaliate against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia after attacks by the group injured 73 civilians in the south of the kingdom, according to the Saudi authorities.
With the latest attacks, which also hit energy facilities in the kingdom, the two sides appeared to be edging toward full-blown war after weeks of escalating tensions.
The Houthis and the Saudi-backed government of Yemen have been at war since 2014, when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa.
Soon after, Saudi Arabia led a bombing campaign to try to restore the internationally recognized government, plunging Yemen into a devastating civil war until a fragile truce was reached in 2022.
The fighting has flared again amid the broader six-month war between the United States and Iran, which has roiled energy markets by choking off shipping routes for the export of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf.
A return to war in Yemen would further threaten the stability of the Middle East and most likely put even more pressure on global energy prices. The Houthis have vowed to attack Saudi energy infrastructure and disrupt the kingdom’s oil export routes in the Red Sea.
The price of Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, touched $99 a barrel following the latest attacks, its highest level since late July.
There has been intense fighting between the Houthis and the Yemeni government in recent days. The Saudi foreign ministry said the Houthi attacks had injured people in four regions of the kingdom, but did not specify when they happened.
“I do not believe the door to diplomacy is closed,” said Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi foreign minister, during a visit to Moscow on Tuesday. “The kingdom will always support peace and diplomatic solutions, but it will not hesitate to defend itself.”
On Tuesday, a Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said on social media that the militia’s recent attacks in Saudi Arabia had been retaliatory. He accused the kingdom of launching 121 airstrikes in Yemen over the past three days, including one that he said had struck a prison, burying inmates under the rubble.
Saudi Arabia has not commented on those claims. The Yemeni government appeared to assume responsibility for at least some of the airstrikes, saying on Monday that its warplanes had struck Houthi military reinforcements in the west of the country.
The spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen, Major General Turki Al-Maliki, said in a statement that the Houthi attacks were “a dangerous escalation.” He added that the coalition would take “all necessary measures and actions to respond to the sources of the threat.”
The Saudi energy ministry said in a statement on social media that the latest attacks on energy facilities had caused fires at some locations and temporarily disrupted operations.
Ahmed Nagi, a senior analyst for Yemen at the International Crisis Group, said the country was “sliding back toward large-scale war.” De-escalation is “not impossible,” he said, “but realistically, it is becoming very difficult.”
Video footage released Monday by the Houthis on social media appeared to show the aftermath of a strike on a site that the group said was a prison in al-Hazm city, the capital of Yemen’s northern province of al-Jawf, in Houthi-controlled territory. The New York Times tracked the footage to a compound near municipal buildings in the north of the city.
Al-Masirah TV, a Houthi-controlled broadcaster, reported Tuesday that Saudi jets had struck targets in the cities of Taiz and Marib. The Saudi government has not commented on that claim.
Fighting in Yemen intensified last week as the Houthis tried to capture territory that could give them more control over shipping routes through the Red Sea, according to local security officials. In July, the Houthis announced a blockade of Saudi shipping through the Red Sea, and have since launched several attacks on Saudi vessels in the region.
Saudi officials have tried to avoid a direct war with the Houthis, but “it is becoming impossible for them not to do so,” said Farea Al-Muslimi, a research fellow on the Middle East and North Africa at Chatham House, a research group. “Today’s development speeds up the Saudi engagement in this war.”
It is unclear what Saudi Arabia’s goals would be if it were to go back to war with the Houthis. Few observers believe there is a realistic path to routing the militia entirely.
Instead, Saudi Arabia could aim to weaken the group and pressure it to negotiate a resolution to Yemen’s civil war that is more favorable to the kingdom and its Yemeni allies, analysts say.
When the kingdom last embarked on a bombing campaign against the Houthis, in 2015, it turned into a quagmire that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis from violence, hunger and disease, and failed to displace the Houthis.
Last month, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a pact committing to collective defense against any attacks on the three nations. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan on Tuesday condemned the “cowardly attack” by the Houthis, but it was unclear whether the latest strikes would prompt a military response.
Ismaeel Naar and Sanjana Varghese contributed reporting.
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