Yemen's Houthi movement fired ballistic missiles and drones at Abha International Airport in south-western Saudi Arabia on Monday, marking the most significant escalation between the two sides since an informal truce took effect four years ago. The Houthis said the strikes were retaliation for an attack on Sanaa's international airport, which they blamed on Saudi Arabia. The Saudi-led coalition, which backs Yemen's internationally recognised government, said its air defences had "dealt with" the incoming projectiles and that no casualties were reported.
The chain of events began when aircraft struck the runway at Sanaa's airport, causing visible plumes of smoke above the city. The internationally recognised Yemeni government — based in the southern port of Aden — claimed responsibility, saying it had acted to prevent an Iranian aircraft from landing. The plane was carrying a Houthi delegation returning from Iran, where they had attended the funeral of the late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Houthi-controlled al-Masirah TV reported that the Iranian plane was diverted and eventually landed in Hudaydah, a Red Sea city roughly 150 kilometres to the south-west of Sanaa. The Houthis, who control north-western Yemen and are backed by Iran, accused Saudi Arabia of orchestrating the airport attack, calling it "blatant aggression" and declaring the "de-escalation phase" of the conflict over.
Yemen has been torn by civil war since 2014, when the Houthis ousted the government from Sanaa, the capital. The conflict deepened in 2015 when a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states intervened to restore government rule. More than 150,000 people have reportedly been killed, and the United Nations estimates that over 22 million Yemenis require some form of humanitarian assistance — one of the worst such crises in the world.
The incident drew rapid international reaction. At an emergency UN Security Council meeting in New York, Assistant Secretary General Khaled Khiari warned that "Yemen and the wider region cannot afford another cycle of escalation," urging all parties to engage in UN-led negotiations. Britain strongly condemned the Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia as a threat to regional security, while Iran's foreign ministry condemned the attack on Sanaa's airport as a violation of international law. Adding to the broader regional tensions, the newly appointed Arab League Secretary General Nabil Fahmy — a former Egyptian foreign minister — used his inaugural speech in Cairo on Monday to call on Iran to stop what he described as attacks on Arab states and to respect their sovereignty, calling such threats "the gravest" facing the region.
The flare-up underscores how fragile the informal truce in Yemen remains, and how quickly a localised dispute — in this case, over a single flight — can reignite a conflict with far-reaching humanitarian and geopolitical consequences.