By Mohammed Ghobari and Timour Azhari
Sept 24 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia intercepted six ballistic missiles fired by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis on Thursday, thwarting attacks on the southern province of Taif and Yanbu area on the Red Sea, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said.
It was not clear whether there was any damage or casualties in either Taif and Yanbu, the main alternative route for Saudi oil, after a widespread emergency alert was issued for areas including Jeddah and the holy city of Mecca.
The attack on Yanbu followed an improvement in prospects for oil exports to resume from the terminal there after sources told Reuters that operations had restarted on the East-West pipeline, which was shut on September 11 after drone attacks which Riyadh has blamed on Iraqi militia.
The port is key to Saudi crude when shipments through the Strait of Hormuz are disrupted.
Civil defence authorities also warned of potential danger in the northwestern province of Tabuk, near the border with Jordan – a first for the area during the latest escalation between the kingdom and the Houthis this month.
The Houthis have largely attacked southern areas of Saudi Arabia.
They stepped up attacks on the kingdom after declaring a naval blockade against it in July, a second theatre for the US-Iran war. The Houthis also seized the whole Yemeni western coast in a lightning offensive nearly two weeks ago that brought them to the shores of the Red Sea’s strategic Bab el-Mandeb waterway.
“Any escalation and violations by the terrorist Houthi militia will be dealt with firmly,” the coalition said in a statement shortly after the attacks.
FLAREUP IN YEMEN’S CIVIL WAR BROADENS MIDDDLE EAST CONFLICT
The Riyadh-backed government’s forces had earlier repelled overnight attacks by the Houthis on a key supply route to the southern port city of Aden where the internationally recognised administration is based, government sources said.
The Houthis have kept up pressure on government forces seeking to consolidate their power through a steep winding mountain pass. Known as Hejat al-Abd, the road is a lifeline for forces fighting on behalf of Yemen’s government, which has been hemmed in by the Houthis.
The road is also critical for goods entering Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, and its southern and western rural areas. It is the only route for residents seeking to travel abroad, with no commercial flights operating from Houthi-controlled areas.
Seizing parts of the Taiz-Aden road could allow the Houthis to tighten their grip around Taiz and deal another blow to the government, which has struggled to regain the initiative since losing the western coast.
The fighting is the latest episode in 12 years of civil war in Yemen which had largely been frozen since a 2022 truce. The Houthis seized the capital Sanaa in 2014, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention the following year in support of the internationally recognised government.
Fighting has flared along several old front lines in recent weeks, including around Taiz, as the Houthis swept south along Yemen’s Red Sea coast.
More than 700 people have been killed and thousands wounded in the latest fighting, according to the United Nations. Nearly 130,000 Yemenis have been displaced within the country, while more than 3,000 have fled by boat across the Red Sea to Africa.
(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari and Timour Azhari, Additional reporting by Jana Choukeir, Tala Ramadan, and Nayera Abdallah; Writing by Maha El Dahan and Nayera Abdallah; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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