Saudi Arabia’s air defences intercepted and destroyed a Houthi drone south of Mecca before it could enter restricted airspace over the holy city, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said as tensions widened across the Middle East.
The incident marked the second reported Houthi attempt to strike Mecca, following a ballistic-missile launch in July 2017, the spokesman said in a statement. It came after a week of attacks by Iran-aligned Houthi fighters that have pulled Saudi Arabia further into the escalating conflict.
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Mecca, home to Islam’s holiest sites and the centre of the annual hajj pilgrimage, is protected as a “red line,” the spokesman said.
Houthi officials rejected the allegation that the group had targeted the city.
Saudi authorities issued security warnings in Mecca, while a Houthi spokesman dismissed the claim as “an outright lie” in remarks carried by the group’s SABA news agency.
The Houthis have claimed responsibility for several significant attacks against Saudi Arabia over the past week, including a strike on an air base on Monday. The group said the assault was retaliation for Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen.
Officials from the Saudi-led coalition said the air-base attack injured 13 civilians.
Saudi Arabia has separately accused a pro-Iranian group operating from Iraq of carrying out Friday’s attack on the East-West Pipeline, one of the kingdom’s key oil transportation routes across the Arabian desert.
The 1,200km pipeline connects Saudi Arabia’s oil fields on the Gulf with the Red Sea. It has served as the kingdom’s main export route as shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has been disrupted during nearly seven months of war that has killed thousands across the region.
Satellite image shows damage to the East-West pipeline facility in the Hejaz Region in Saudi Arabia
Traders said the pipeline’s continued closure could eventually remove as much as 4% of global oil supply from the market.
Saudi Arabia has not given a timetable for the resumption of operations.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, however, told CNBC that crude shipments through the pipeline were expected to resume within days.
Saudi Arabia has headed the coalition fighting the Houthis since 2015.
The war had eased considerably under a ceasefire in recent years, but violence returned this month after the Houthis launched a counteroffensive against forces aligned with Yemen’s government.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke with US President Donald Trump last week to request military assistance. So far, Washington’s support has been limited to intelligence aid.
