Five killed as Yemen's Houthis, government, Saudi Arabia trade strikes

RIYADH: Attacks attributed to the Houthis, the Yemeni government and its Saudi backers killed at least five people on Thursday (Sep 17), as fighting rocked the Arabian Peninsula after the Iran-backed group made lightning gains in a fresh offensive.

The three sides have been locked in increasingly violent exchanges since Yemen's civil war flared back to life, with Saudi Arabia accusing the Houthis of firing at the holy city of Mecca this week.

On Thursday, the Houthis said "Saudi enemy warplanes targeted three telecommunications towers" in Taiz province, with one civilian killed and another injured in strikes on the town of Abs, Almasirah television said.

The Houthi-backed outlet later reported that "three children were killed and several Yemeni nationals were injured in strikes by the Saudi-backed mercenaries", a reference to the country's internationally recognised government.

Saudi Arabia's civil defence agency, meanwhile, reported casualties caused by debris from an intercepted Houthi drone in an area east of Mecca.

"The fall of shrapnel from a downed drone in Taif governorate resulted in one death, two injuries, and material damage to several buildings and vehicles," the agency said in a statement posted on social media, adding that the person killed was a Yemeni national.

The death was the first reported in Saudi Arabia since the recent fighting flared.

Images posted by Saudi state media showed windows in cars and shop fronts shattered by the shrapnel, with nearby buildings also damaged.

The incidents come a day after Riyadh accused the Houthis of launching a "cowardly" attack targeting Islam's holy city of Mecca, a claim they denied.

The Houthis have been reporting dozens of daily Saudi strikes since they launched their new offensive and seized control of strategic coastal areas overlooking the Red Sea's Bab el-Mandeb Strait from government forces.

With Iran already throttling the Strait of Hormuz since the outbreak of the wider Middle East war, their Yemeni allies' latest gains cement their hold on the other main shipping corridor for Gulf oil and gas.

The route had been especially important to Saudi Arabia, the world's top crude exporter, which had used a pipeline to bypass the Hormuz and send oil to the Red Sea, which links Europe and Asia via the Suez Canal.

In July, a fragile 2022 truce between the Houthis and the government fell apart after the group allowed an Iranian plane to land in the capital Sanaa in defiance of Riyadh's control over Yemeni airspace, setting off a spate of attacks.

They also announced a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and began striking its ships and territory.

The conflict in the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country has forced more than 100,000 people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.