Saudi Arabia’s energy minister has vowed a “serious” response to deadly attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement on the kingdom’s airports and on its oil and gas facilities.
“The events of recent weeks are serious. Our response must be equally serious,” Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman told the WPC Energy Congress in Riyadh.
According to Saudi authorities, a Pakistani man was killed on Sunday in an attack on a terminal at King Khalid International Airport in the capital. The BBC reported that one person died and 11 were injured in the second Houthi strike on Riyadh’s airport in two days.
That attack came a day after a Houthi missile struck a different terminal, killing 13 people and forcing it to shut.
The Houthis said the attacks were carried out in retaliation for what they described as “brutal Saudi aggression” against areas they control in western Yemen.
In Sanaa, the Houthi-run health ministry said a child was killed and six other people were injured when a Saudi air strike hit a home on Sunday.
A Saudi-led coalition has been supplying air support to Yemeni pro-government forces battling the Houthis along Yemen’s Red Sea coast and in other areas.
The civil war in Yemen began in 2014, when the Houthis drove the government out of Sanaa. It escalated in 2015, when the Saudi-led coalition intervened in a bid to restore the government’s rule.
A four-year informal ceasefire started to unravel in July, when the Houthis announced a “maritime embargo” against Saudi Arabia and began missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers in the Red Sea.
The Houthis said they were retaliating for what they say is a Saudi blockade of ports and airports in their territory, as well as for an air strike on Sanaa airport that they blamed on the kingdom. Yemen’s government claimed responsibility for that strike, saying it was trying to prevent an unauthorised Iranian plane from landing.
Last month, the Houthis launched a surprise offensive along Yemen’s south-western Red Sea coast, ousting pro-government forces from areas overlooking the Bab al-Mandab Strait, at the southern end of the Red Sea.
They said they posed no threat to international shipping passing through the waterway, but that they would continue to target vessels from Saudi Arabia.
The seizure of the strait contributed to a surge in global oil prices, because Saudi Arabia had been relying on the Red Sea for oil exports after the US and Israel’s war with Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.
Last week, the Yemeni government announced the start of a new offensive aimed at retaking all territory held by the Houthis.
Pro-government forces said they were able to retake areas around Bab al-Mandab quickly with the help of intense Saudi air strikes, but the Houthis denied losing any territory.
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