Houthis claim missile strike on Saudi vessel in Red Sea

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi militants said on Monday they struck a Saudi military ship and four escort vessels in the Red Sea with ballistic missiles, according to the group's military spokesperson Yahya Saree, who posted the claim on Telegram. The Houthis said the warship caught fire and several escorting boats sank or burned. There was no immediate confirmation from Saudi authorities.nytimes+2

Two sources in Yemen's internationally recognized government told Reuters the Houthis had attacked a ship in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait with six missiles, adding that the vessel had been out of service for more than a year and was believed to have been empty at the time.jpost+1

Escalation Across Multiple Fronts

The strike marks the latest in a series of attacks that have shattered the relative calm brought by a 2022 UN-mediated ceasefire. The Houthis imposed a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia in July, targeting Saudi tankers in the Red Sea and attacking the kingdom's oil infrastructure. Last week, Houthi missiles struck the port of Mocha, killing seven people and causing an estimated $16 million in losses, the port's director said, forcing the suspension of commercial operations.kurdistan24+1

Saudi Arabia's civil defense agency issued an alert on Sunday warning of "potential danger" in the southern province of Jazan along the Yemeni border. The kingdom also struck Yemen's border regions on Monday, according to reports. Meanwhile, a senior Houthi-aligned official, Abdulaziz bin Habtour, warned that Saudi Arabia "would not avoid responsibility for the consequences of escalating tensions".abna24+2

Iran's Role and Regional Diplomacy

The Wall Street Journal News Corp ↘ 1.24% reported that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sent commanders to Houthi-controlled areas to plan a stepped-up confrontation with Saudi Arabia, providing intelligence, target lists of Saudi ports and energy facilities, and supervising deployments of missiles and drone launchers overlooking the Red Sea. The IRGC also coordinated with Iraqi militias backed by Iran, which launched drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities.i24news

In response to the deteriorating situation, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan held telephone conversations on Monday with his Qatari and Omani counterparts to discuss "maintaining ongoing and coordinated consultations among those countries that support security and stability in the area".democrata

The renewed hostilities have raised fears that Yemen could again become a major theater of conflict, while the Houthi-Saudi confrontation risks disrupting one of the world's most critical maritime chokepoints connecting Asia to Europe through the Suez Canal.nytimes+1