Iran has rejected Saudi Arabia’s accusation that it encouraged Yemen’s Houthi rebels to intensify attacks on the kingdom, as missile and drone strikes continued to threaten major cities and vital oil infrastructure.
The Iran-aligned Houthis have repeatedly targeted Saudi interests since Yemen’s civil war reignited in July, striking Red Sea tankers, oil facilities and Riyadh’s international airport. A single attack on the airport last week killed 13 people.
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A Saudi-led military coalition has backed Yemen’s internationally recognised government for more than a decade. The coalition said it had intercepted additional missiles and drones yesterday as Saudi Arabia faced another wave of Houthi attacks.
A Saudi foreign ministry official had said a day earlier that Iran had “encouraged” the escalation. Tehran denied the allegation.
“Yemen’s armed forces act according to their own interests and assessments, and such claims are not credible to those familiar with relations between Iran and its friends. Nevertheless, Iran does not consider an escalation of tensions to be in the interests of any party,” he added.
In a statement, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said that Yemen’s armed forces ‘act according to their own interests and assessments’
The Saudi official, deputy minister for public diplomacy Dr Rayed Krimly, said the Houthis had refused an offer to hold talks in Oman when the latest hostilities began.
Mr Baghaei nevertheless repeated Iran’s offer to mediate, saying Tehran “has always been ready to use its good offices to help end the hostilities”.
A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition said yesterday that its forces had “intercepted and destroyed three drones in the southern area and Riyadh and two cruise missiles over the Red Sea”.
He said the coalition had also “intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile over Yanbu” in the previous hours. The Red Sea city is home to the terminus of a major oil pipeline.
Houthi attacks have multiplied since the group launched a rapid offensive in Yemen in September, capturing strategically important government-held territory along the Red Sea coast near a major global shipping chokepoint.
The assault on Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, comes as energy markets remain unsettled after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the broader Middle East war in February.
Airport struck
Yemeni government forces, backed by Saudi air strikes, have mounted a counteroffensive to recover territory seized by the Houthis, but have not yet managed to roll back the group’s advances.
Yesterday, Aden’s local security office said two missiles landed inside the perimeter of the city’s airport, marking “the second incident of its kind in less than a week”. No deaths were reported.
The Houthis, in a statement attributed to a military source, said they had targeted “the Saudi forces’ command headquarters” and a weapons depot.
Yemen’s information ministry said a Yemenia Airways flight travelling from Aden to Cairo narrowly avoided being hit.
The aircraft was “preparing for takeoff at the very moment when the terrorist Houthi militia targeted the airport with two missiles that landed approximately 500 metres from the aircraft and about 100 metres from the centre of the runway,” the ministry said.
“What occurred was not merely an assault on a civilian airport, but a direct threat to the lives of passengers and flight crews, to aviation safety, and a grave violation of international laws and norms,” it added.
The previous day, the Houthis carried out a deadly missile strike on Aden’s presidential palace, killing five people and injuring 16, according to the health minister.
Yemeni Prime Minister Shaya al-Zindani condemned what he called a “cowardly” attack on X, describing it as a “continuation of (the Houthis’) criminal pattern”.
A government minister, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Houthis had struck command centres used by Yemeni and Saudi coalition forces inside the palace complex.
Houthi-affiliated media said the target was “the headquarters of military operations, led by Saudi officers, at the Al-Maashiq Palace in Aden”.
