Houthi fighters said on Sunday they had launched a drone and missile attack on a military base in southern Saudi Arabia, as renewed clashes with Yemen's government forces drove more civilians from their homes. The attack at the southern Sharurah base targeted "weapons depots and command and control centres that are managing the aggression against our nation and people", Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree wrote on X. The date of the operation was not specified.
Clashes have increased this week between the Iran-allied Houthis and Yemeni government forces, which are backed by Riyadh. On Saturday, the government forces said they had struck Houthi fighters in the Red Sea city of Mocha, and later attacked other Houthi positions in the southwestern part of the country. "Air Force of the Armed Forces targeted positions and barracks of the terrorist Houthi group with three airstrikes" in the Taiz region, the Yemeni military said Sunday in a post on X.
US news site Axios also reported that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman twice called US President Donald Trump to request strikes on the Houthis last week, but that the request was rejected. The ongoing clashes follow a week-long Houthi offensive that culminated in the group capturing the remainder of Yemen's Red Sea coast and several strategic islands, cementing their hold on the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the sea's southern entrance.
The waterway has become an important artery for Saudi Arabian oil exports after Iran largely cut off shipments through the Gulf with its blockade on the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the Middle East war. The Houthis have recently declared their own maritime blockade of Riyadh's Red Sea ports. Yemen's civil war, which began in 2014, had been dormant since a ceasefire in 2022 but roared back to life in July, uprooting thousands of more people from their homes.