The Iranian-backed Houthi militia said on Wednesday that Saudi forces had launched dozens of airstrikes in Yemen, as the country tips toward another full-blown war after weeks of mounting hostilities.
Saudi officials have not commented publicly on the Houthis’ claim, which came a day after the kingdom vowed retaliation for a Houthi attack that injured 73 civilians in the south of the country.
Fighting has raged between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government in recent days, threatening to restart a devastating civil war. The two sides have been at war since 2014, when the Houthis seized the capital city. Since then, Yemen has been effectively divided into two states, with the Houthis in control of large swaths of the north. A fragile cease-fire was reached in 2022.
As the broader conflict between the United States and Iran chokes off traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the Houthis appear to have launched an offensive to wrest control over shipping routes to the Red Sea, igniting escalating ground battles. The militia has also attacked Saudi energy facilities and enforced a blockade of the kingdom’s shipping through the Red Sea, prompting Saudi reprisals.
A Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said that Saudi warplanes on Wednesday carried out 54 airstrikes across five Yemeni regions that have become front lines. They include the Houthi-controlled provinces of Al-Bayda and Saada, as well as the contested provinces of Taiz, Marib and Al-Jawf.
The Saudi-backed Yemeni army also said on Wednesday that it had conducted airstrikes in some of the same areas over the past 24 hours.
Mohammed al-Basha, a Yemen-focused political analyst based in Washington, said the airstrikes in recent days were some of the most significant waves of attacks since the 2022 truce. They showed the conflict quickly sliding toward full-scale war, he said.
Earlier this week, the Houthi militia accused Saudi Arabia of striking a prison and burying inmates under the rubble. On Wednesday, the health ministry said that strike had killed 32 people and wounded seven others, according to health ministry figures published in the Houthi run state news agency Saba. Saudi officials did not respond to a request for comment.
The most intense fighting in recent days has been around western Taiz,Yemeni military officials said. They suspect the militia’s offensive there is part of an effort to reach the port city of Mokha, which is less than 50 miles from the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a choke point at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.
Saudi officials say they have tried to avoid a direct war with the Houthis. When the kingdom last embarked on a bombing campaign against the militants, in 2015, it turned into a quagmire. Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis were killed by the fighting, hunger and disease.
And in the end, the Saudi campaign failed to displace the Houthis.
But even as Saudi officials say the door for diplomacy now is not closed, it is becoming difficult to de-escalate, analysts say.
“The kingdom will always support peace and diplomatic solutions, but it will not hesitate to defend itself,” the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said during a visit to Moscow on Tuesday.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, typically ships its oil through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the world’s oceans. But Iran effectively closed off that waterway after coming under attack by the United States and Israel in February.
Saudi Arabia turned to the Red Sea to export most of its oil, but over the past two months, the renewed tensions with the Houthis disrupted that route, too.
Last month, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a pact committing to collective defense against attacks on any of their nations. On Tuesday, Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, condemned the “cowardly attack” by the Houthis, but it was unclear whether the latest strikes would prompt a military response.
Vivian Nereim, Saeed Al-Batati and Shuaib Almosawa contributed reporting.
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