Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis appeared on the brink of renewed war after the fighters claimed their first large-scale strikes on the kingdom since 2022, analysts and a Gulf source said. The Houthis fired missiles at an airport in the southern Saudi Arabian city of Abha late Monday, after the Yemeni government hit Sanaa airport to divert a flight from Iran that had onboard a Houthi delegation returning from the late supreme leader’s funeral.
The Houthis have blamed Riyadh for the attack. For some analysts, the exchange likely marked a new era of hostilities and the end of a four-year uneasy truce that ended attacks between Yemen’s government and the coalition that backs it, and the Houthis.