Mediator Qatar on Tuesday said the United States and Iran were still engaged in talks to end the Middle East war, despite an apparent deadlock seven months into the conflict. The indirect negotiations take account of "the concerns of the various parties", foreign ministry official Ibrahim Al-Hashmi told a regular press briefing. "I can confirm that the talks are continuing and the exchange of messages between different parties is continuing via Qatar and its regional partners," he said.
"As you know, the scale of this conflict and the magnitude of the price that the whole world is paying require us to put our best efforts to end this immediately through a negotiable solution on the negotiation table," the official added. Also on Tuesday, Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met Iran's Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni in Doha, a statement from the royal palace said.
Despite a ceasefire in April, a memorandum of understanding in June and talks at the UN General Assembly last month, Washington and Tehran remain at odds over the strategic Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said talks with the US were "meaningless" and only resulted in renewed attacks, according to state media. Meanwhile, Yemen's Houthis claimed an attack on the Saudi capital's main airport and on Tuesday denied being pushed back by government forces, who have launched a major operation to recapture lost territory.
The Houthi statements come as Yemen's military said it had removed the pro-Iran group from areas around the Bab al-Mandab strait, a Red Sea chokepoint, and the port city of Mocha. Claims by both sides in Yemen have been impossible to independently verify, with the situation on the ground moving fast and access for journalists difficult. Sources on both sides told Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group still held all territory seized last month when they swept through coastal areas along the Red Sea, a vital global shipping route.
Houthi fighters "have full control over all their advances on the ground", he posted on Telegram. Saree said they had carried out dozens of strikes in the past few hours targeting government forces in Yemen's Al-Jawf and Marib regions, while also attacking Taiz governorate. The Houthis' health ministry meanwhile said on Tuesday that a Saudi airstrike killed six members of the same family, including four children, in a village in Hajjah governorate, bordering Saudi Arabia.
On Monday, the Houthis said they had struck Riyadh airport and a refinery belonging to Saudi state oil giant Aramco. Loud explosions rattled the Saudi capital on Monday evening. They were followed by another explosion on Tuesday that echoed through northern parts of the city, residents told Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport is facing frequent temporary closures of its airspace, according to tracking website Flightradar24.
Saudi authorities have not publicly acknowledged the closures or confirmed any strikes targeting the facility. But on Tuesday the civil aviation authority said at least three people were wounded in attacks on Jazan and Najran airports near the Yemen border a day earlier. Saudi Arabia, the main backer of the Yemeni government, has been providing air support for the counter-offensive launched by government forces.
Government forces claimed late on Monday that they had achieved "victories on several fronts". But military sources with the government refrained from confirming Mocha's recapture, only saying they had cut the one supply route to the area. They also said they expelled the Houthis from several areas in Taiz in the southwest, where fighting has surged in recent days.
The Saudi-led coalition battling Houthis said on Tuesday that its forces intercepted a ballistic missile fired by the Iran-backed group at the kingdom's southwest. The coalition's spokesman Major General Turki al-Maliki said on X it "intercepted and destroyed" the missile launched towards Khamis Mushait, which is home to an airbase. Video posted by government forces in Yemen showed them driving armoured cars over opposing fighters as they recaptured areas around the vital Bab el-Mandeb Strait from Iran-backed Houthis on Monday in a deadly new phase of the fragmented country's war.
The videos gave a glimpse into the brutal closing stages of a pitched battle for control of territory near the strait that the Houthis had captured last month. The videos, verified by Some were armed and some were walking or running. However, others were unarmed and some were sitting, lying or crouching on the sandy shore and made no move to evade the oncoming vehicle as they were run over.
At one point, a vehicle hits a man, running and unarmed, and another crouching on the ground. It then loops back to drive over two men, both with their hands up and unarmed. Shooting can be heard during the video and at one point the vehicle's windscreen is cracked by a gunshot.
A Houthi statement decried the videos as proof of war crimes. A spokesperson for the Giants Brigade - the main Yemeni government force involved in the fighting at Bab el-Mandeb this week - did not immediately comment in response to a Meanwhile, Oman carried out a medical evacuation for 10 crew members of Panama-flagged oil tanker On Peace, which was attacked near the Gulf country, the media office of the sultanate's armed forced said on Tuesday.