Yemen

In a single night, an Iran-allied militia trounced Saudi-backed forces to take control of Yemen's Red Sea coast. No one was able, or willing, to stop them

Saudi Arabia said three people were injured in the latest attacks on its airports since fighting with Yemen's Houthi rebels reignited. Meanwhile, Palestinian health officials said an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City killed one person. Nearly three years after Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, conflict in the Middle East has persisted almost without interruption, spreading across the region, including to Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Monday. Full coverage is available here. Saudis says 2 airports were hit as fighting grinds on with Houthis ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saudi Arabia on Tuesday acknowledged that two of its airports were attacked, leaving three lightly injured, hours after the Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they fired missiles and drones at the kingdom. The attacks were the latest in the conflict between the kingdom and the Houthis in neighbouring Yemen. Sa

Houthis make advances in Taiz; UN says war has displaced 184,000

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels captured more territory in southwestern Yemen, taking a key town in a blow to the Saudi-backed government forces as they advanced Monday toward a strategic provincial capital in the region. The fall of the town of Turbah came on Sunday, shortly before the internationally recognised government announced a major military operation against the Houthis. The escalation between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis has revived Yemen's civil war after a four-year ceasefire. Turbah sits on a main road linking the provincial capital of Taiz with the port city of Aden, which serves as an interim seat of the internationally recognised government. Over the years, the town was a major post for the government forces defending Taiz against the Houthis. Earlier, the Houthis seized several villages and areas on Taiz's outskirts in a series of advances, paving the way for the rebels to encircle Taiz, Yemen's third largest city. The Iranian-backed rebels made a swift push on the

Fighting intensifies in Yemen's Taiz province as the US deploys another aircraft carrier and 10,000 sailors and Marines amid heightened tensions with Iran

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said that Britain has agreed to provide limited military support to Saudi Arabia to repeal attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Burnham on Monday told reporters as he flew to the United Nations General Assembly in New York that he had agreed the Royal Air Force will provide air-to-air refuelling of Saudi planes. The agreement is for a matter of weeks, but Burnham said it will be kept under review. The conflict between the Houthis and Yemen's Saudi-backed government has reignited, with Houthis aiming missile and drone strikes on Saudi Arabia, including one that targeted Riyadh on Saturday before being intercepted. The Houthis also declared a blockade on Saudi shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea, attacking Saudi-linked vessels and oil facilities inside the kingdom, the world's top oil exporter. The Houthis advanced inside Yemen earlier this month, seizing the crucial port city of Mokha and key Red Sea islands allowing them to be

Ankara signals technical support under the Mecca alliance as Houthi strikes test regional security

Saudi Arabia has confirmed that Yemen's Houthi rebels tried to attack its capital with a ballistic missile. The statement late Saturday by the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis came long after the morning attempt, which the coalition said was intercepted. It was the first attack targeting Riyadh since the escalation in fighting between the Iran-backed Houthis and Yemeni government forces backed by the Saudis. The statement also said the Houthis tried to attack civilian infrastructure in the Red Sea port city of Yanbu and in Taif, Baysh and Farasan but they were thwarted, giving no further details. The Houthis earlier claimed, without providing evidence, they had targeted "sensitive sites" in Riyadh and facilities of Saudi oil giant Aramco in Yanbu, causing "massive fires". Aramco, the world's largest oil company, did not respond to a request for comment. The growing conflict near another important global shipping corridor has brought new pressures for markets.

MEA says attacks threatening navigation in Bab-el-Mandeb are unacceptable, while reiterating concerns over the impact of proposed US sanctions legislation on trade ties

Saudi Arabia accused Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels overnight of trying to attack Islam's holiest city, prompting condemnation from countries in the region but no sign of military support. The kingdom, a key US ally, declared Mecca a "red line" as it slid deeper into the new front of the Iran war. With the world's biggest oil exporter under fire from the rebels backed by the Saudis' regional adversary, Tehran, the kingdom needs a safe outlet for its crude as well as military support. However, a path to either one remains unclear. A crucial Saudi pipeline has reportedly been shut down for weeks as the Yemen-based Houthis have been attacking infrastructure in the kingdom as well as its shipping on the Red Sea. Iran is still targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices remain above USD 100 a barrel. The Houthis denied firing drones toward Mecca, about 1,100 kilometres from Yemen's border. The Saudis said they intercepted and destroyed the drone before it entered the airspace

At various times over the last decade, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Britain and Israel have carried out punishing air raids on Yemen's Houthi rebels -- only to see them grow even stronger. Now, as the Iran-backed Houthis advance on a key maritime chokepoint and strike Saudi oil facilities, rattling world markets, there is little that can be done to stop them that hasn't been tried before. That's because the Houthis operate in a large and mountainous territory where they can disperse fighters and military infrastructure while threatening major oil infrastructure and key trade routes. Iran and its allies in Lebanon and Iraq provide expertise, training and sophisticated weapons, according to UN and other experts, and the Houthis' hard-line ideology does the rest. "They are the most committed, the most ideologically pure and the most aggressive" of Iran's regional allies, says Michael Knights, who has written extensively about the Houthis and is now head of

Saudi civil defence briefly issued danger alerts for Mecca, Taif and Jeddah amid the escalation with Yemen's Houthis

Yemen's Houthi rebels have seized the strategic islands of Greater and Lesser Hanish in the southern Red Sea, bolstering the Iran-backed rebels' ability to control a key maritime shipping route. Meanwhile, repairs to a crucial Saudi Arabian oil pipeline that was struck in an attack last week could last three to five weeks, putting it mostly out of service, two regional officials said. Here's a look at the latest news in the Middle East. Full coverage can be found here. Houthis gain ground as oil prices face more pressure --------------------------------------------------------- Houthi officials said Monday that rebels had taken over the two islands just as Saudi-backed government forces tried to claw back territory from the rebels' swift advances around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial shipping alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz -- through which a fifth of the world's traded oil and gas transits in peacetime -- in the opening days

The conflict in Yemen intensified on Sunday, as government forces launched attacks against Iran-backed Houthi rebels along the Red Sea and Houthis fired into neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which supports Yemen's government. The Yemeni government vowed to send more forces to the Red Sea coast and one official conceded a "painful" defeat last week when Houthis captured the port city of Mokha and an island on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial shipping alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. The escalation -- especially Houthi attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure and its shipping in the Red Sea -- adds pressure on global oil supplies and prices, and that could give Iran leverage in its war with the United States. As Yemen risks descending into another civil war, the United Nations estimated that more than 80,000 people in the impoverished country have been displaced by the fighting since the start of September. One woman said a mortar shell fell nearby as she fled in the middle of the night

Iran confirmed that its representatives and those of Iraq and the Gulf Arab states would meet in Oman on Monday to resume discussions on safe commercial shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz

Saudi airstrikes hit the rebel-held Mokha airport in Yemen on Friday, an Iranian-backed Houthi broadcaster reported, a day after the Houthis entered the key port city on the Red Sea, bringing them closer to the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Their advance further threatens commercial shipping on an important alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. Earlier Friday, Iran's government called for an end to Saudi Arabia's blockade of Yemen, throwing its support behind its ally, the Houthis. In its first statement since the rebels entered the port, Iran's Foreign Ministry also called for a return to negotiations between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis. The rebels' capture of Mokha, overlooking tanker routes out of the Red Sea, could boost Iran's strategy of driving up world oil and gas prices to pressure the United States, experts say. It also raises concerns of a new front opening after more than six months of war in the region -- one in which Saudi Arabia is forced to respond. Experts say th

Iran's government on Friday called for an end to Saudi Arabia's blockade of Yemen and the immediate resumption of talks, in its first public statement since Iran-backed Houthi rebels entered a key Yemeni port and intensified their threat to a key global shipping alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. In a statement carried by the state-run IRNA news agency, Iran's foreign ministry said Yemen's sovereignty must be respected and its problems cannot be resolved through a blockade or military alliances. Iran also said it was ready to help support negotiations. Meanwhile, experts say the developments in Yemen could give Tehran more leverage in any negotiations with the United States after over six months of war. Events threaten a key Strait of Hormuz alternative ------------------------------------------------------ The Houthis' entry into the Red Sea port of Mokha on Thursday brings them within 80 kilometres of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, an important alternative for global shipping as Ir

Pakistan said there should be "no ambiguity" that an attack on any one of the three members of the newly formed Makkah Defence Alliance would be treated as an attack on all, as he warned that the pact could become operative following Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif's remarks on Tuesday come hours after Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi forces launched a wave of missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, targeting cities and economic and energy infrastructure and injuring at least 73 civilians. The minister said any unprovoked aggression against a member state, or a spillover of the Yemen conflict into Saudi Arabia, would activate the collective-defence provisions of the agreement signed by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye in Makkah last month. "There should be no ambiguity; there is no need for any clarity that this is a joint defence agreement," Asif said in an interview with Geo TV channel. Pakistan would honour its commitments to Saudi Arabia under the .

Houthi attacks ignited fires at several oil facilities and utilities in Saudi Arabia's southern region Tuesday and wounded more than 70 people, Saudi authorities said. Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, a spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, said the attacks hit "civilian and economic facilities" in the Saudi cities. The wave of Houthi attacks were a major escalation in the renewed conflict between an important US ally and the Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen. The kingdom's Energy Ministry said operations at the oil facilities and utilities were temporarily suspended.

Two vessels carrying 22 Indians were hijacked in separate incidents off Yemen and Somalia. While 16 were aboard a tanker seized in the Gulf of Aden, six were on a cargo ship near Somalia's Puntland