The group, fighting the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government, last week seized control of Yemen’s Red Sea coast and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which has become vital as the wider US-Iran war chokes the Strait of Hormuz.
The Houthis said Riyadh targeted Yemen with 54 strikes over 24 hours, after the group fired dozens of drones and missiles at Saudi military facilities, prompting the Saudi civil defence to issue alerts in the southern cities of Khamis Mushait and Abha.
The renewed fighting in Yemen comes as the wider regional war remains at a stalemate. But US President Donald Trump on Monday said he was open to holding talks with Iran.
“The failing Nation of Iran wants to make a deal, quickly and badly. I will determine whether or not the U.S.A. will choose to engage – The concept of which we are open to,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.
On Monday, a proposed meeting between Gulf states and Iran over the future of Hormuz was postponed, with Tehran accusing Riyadh of using Yemen as a “pretext” to delay the talks.
Tehran has long supported the Houthis, a member of its anti-Israel “axis of resistance,” including with weapons and technology, but analysts dispute the extent to which Iran is behind the renewed fighting.
“Iran does not interfere in Yemeni affairs,” foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told reporters on Monday, saying the Houthis are “entirely independent actors who make their decisions based on their own interests.”
Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was expected to hold talks with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Tuesday, Cairo announced.
Last week, US media reported that Trump had rejected a personal request from the Saudi crown prince to intervene in the war.
Yemen’s prolonged civil war had been dormant for four years before reigniting in July over an Iranian flight to the capital Sanaa, becoming the latest conflict drawn into the wider regional war.
The Houthis’ military spokesman Yahya Saree on Monday said Saudi Arabia “conducted 54 air strikes over the past 24 hours using F15 and Typhoon aircraft.”
He said the areas of Taiz, Lahj, Al-Jawf, Marib, and Hodeida were targeted.
The Houthis seized Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014 at the outset of the civil war, driving the government to Aden in the south.
The following year, Saudi Arabia led a coalition to intervene on the side of the government, launching wave after wave of air strikes as the conflict escalated into one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
On Monday, the UN’s migration agency said the renewed fighting in the Arab world’s poorest country had forced 93,864 people to flee their homes. (AFP)
