Houthis claim new attacks on Saudi airports and military bases

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The Houthis’ military spokesperson Brigader General Yahya Saree, said on social media that the rebels launched ballistic missiles and drones against King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh.

The spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis, Major General Turki al-Malki, said they intercepted a ballistic missile north of Riyadh.

The kingdom, the world’s top oil exporter, has faced a string of attacks on oil and military targets in recent days.

Now Saudi Arabia and allied Yemeni forces have launched a major ground and air offensive against the Houthis, aiming to retake territory that the rebels seized a month ago along Yemen’s western Red Sea coast and on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Those positions gave the Houthis better surveillance as they pursue a blockade of Saudi-linked shipping.

On Monday, officials said forces of the Saudi-led coalition recaptured several key areas around the strait, through which about 12 per cent of global trade transits.

In Yemen, fighting has centred in and around the crucial town of Dhubab, some 33.5 miles south of the port city of Mokha that the rebels seized last month, according to both the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognised government.

Clashes were also reported in Waziayah district in south-western Taiz province, which links Yemen’s highlands to the Red Sea and overlooks roads to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Mr al-Malki has vowed “full operational support” to Yemeni government forces until the Houthis are “eliminated.”

The attack began after the rebels seized Turbah town on a main road linking the provincial capital of Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, with Aden, the seat of the internationally recognised government.

Officials have said US support has included intelligence sharing, target identification and planning.

The escalation has revived Yemen’s civil war after a four-year ceasefire. Almost 1,000 people have been killed in the latest fighting, with over 180,000 displaced, according to the United Nations.

Cholera and malnutrition cases are increasing, access to trauma care is more difficult and some hospitals have shortages of surgical and other supplies, the World Health Organisation said this week.