Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthis attacked four cities in the south of US ally Saudi Arabia yesterday, wounding more than 70 people and setting oil installations ablaze in what appeared to be a major expansion of the six-month-old Middle East war.
The Houthis, who control most of Yemen’s populated areas including the capital, said they had launched a broad operation deep into Saudi territory.
They used drones and missiles to strike a Saudi airbase in the southern city of Khamis Mushait, and targets belonging to Saudi Arabia’s state oil company in nearby Abha, Najran on the Yemeni border and Jazan, a major Red Sea port city that houses a large refinery and power plant.
Saudi authorities described blazes at the sites and said women and children were among the 73 people hurt. The reports of such large numbers of wounded suggested the attacks were among the biggest carried out against Saudi Arabia since the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran in February.
Confirmed images of the aftermath of the Houthi attacks in Saudi cities were not immediately available, and witnesses could not be reached in a country where media is tightly controlled. The Houthis released pictures showing thick smoke and explosions of what they said were trucks from Saudi Arabia that they had hit in separate strikes at the border in another area further east on Monday.
Houthi-controlled media reported later yesterday that Saudi warplanes had carried out four airstrikes in Yemen’s Jubah district east of the capital Sanaa.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 rose $1 to $98 a barrel after the Saudi energy ministry statement, while US crude futures CLc1 rose over $2 to $93.65 a barrel, reports Reuters.
Meanwhile, Iran threatened the US with “economic warfare” and said it had fired an advanced missile at US warships, underscoring the risks of further escalation in the war.
The Islamic Republic has vowed to announce a new restricted zone in the Gulf in the coming days, along with maps of a new shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz, though it was unclear when details would emerge.
The new restricted zone would begin from where the US blockade of Iran begins and extend into areas of the Gulf, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told state television on Sunday, adding that any vessel entering the area would be placed on an Iranian sanctions list. Yesterday, Rezaei reissued dual economic and military threats on X.
US President Donald Trump has said oil prices will fall sharply once the conflict with Iran ends, predicting that gasoline prices in the United States could eventually drop below $2 per gallon.
“Oil prices will drop precipitously, like everything else is dropping (but more!), when we WIN the war with Iran,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
US military and intelligence officials have begun informal discussions on reducing the Pentagon’s permanent footprint across the Middle East, weighing troop cuts and facility closures as the Trump administration seeks to end the war with Iran, CNN reported citing six sources.
The discussions could mark another shift in Washington’s regional posture following the dramatic expansion of US presence after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
About 50,000 American troops remain deployed across the region alongside two aircraft carriers and more than a dozen guided-missile destroyers, according to the report.
