Persian Gulf states call off meeting with Iran as Houthis launch new attack on Saudi Arabia
Arab states in the Persian Gulf called off a meeting with Iran planned for Monday, while Yemen's Houthis launched a new attack on Saudi Arabia after fighting that has extended the Middle East war to another theatre and further jeopardized global oil supplies.
Upsurge of fighting in Yemen poses dilemma for Washington
Thomson Reuters
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Arab states in the Persian Gulf called off a meeting with Iran planned for Monday, while Yemen's Houthis launched a new attack on Saudi Arabia after fighting that has extended the Middle East war to another theatre and further jeopardized global oil supplies.
The Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen said they fired dozens of missiles and drones on Monday at a Saudi military airbase in Khamis Mushait, near the border, hitting aircraft hangars, radar systems, runways and ammunition depots. They described the attack as retaliation for hundreds of Saudi airstrikes on Yemen in recent days.
Saudi authorities announced brief emergency alerts there and in three other southern cities which have previously come under Houthi fire.
The Houthis launched a lightning advance last week in Yemen, culminating in the seizure of an island in the mouth of the Red Sea on Friday. A separate attack that day, which Riyadh blamed on Iran-backed fighters in Iraq, knocked out Saudi Arabia's east-west pipeline, the main route for Middle East oil bypassing the blockaded Strait of Hormuz.
Crude oil prices rose more than three per cent on Monday, when the market reopened after the weekend, while the politically sensitive average retail price of diesel in the United States hit a new all-time high above $6.23 US a gallon.
Traders say the closure of the Saudi pipeline could cut off as much as four per cent of global oil supply unless it is reopened within days. Images from space show sections of the pipeline damaged by blazes. Riyadh has not given a firm estimate for how long it will be shut.
Oman had been due to host a meeting on Monday with Iran and Gulf states to discuss negotiations aimed at reopening Hormuz, the world's most important oil shipping lane, largely closed since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February.
But Oman's Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Al Busaidi announced overnight that the meeting had been postponed "in the interests of consensus." Iran said the postponement was at the request of Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, Iran issued a list of 77 ships it said had violated its protocols for operating in the Strait of Hormuz. Any ship on the list would face "restrictions on future passages, including fines, detention, or confiscation," and other ships that assisted them by accepting transfers of cargo would be added to the list.
New war front poses dilemma for Trump
The upsurge of fighting in Yemen poses a dilemma for Washington, which is under pressure to aid its Saudi allies but anxious not to expand the costly war to a new theatre.
Saudi Arabia has led an Arab coalition battling the Houthis for more than a decade, after the mountain fighters captured Yemen's capital in 2014. The war there had largely been quiet under a ceasefire for the past few years, but fighting has now resumed, with the Houthis driving back forces from a Saudi-backed government based in the south.
Thousands of Yemenis have fled inland from the coast to escape fighting as the Houthis swept into cities, including the historic Red Sea port of Mocha, last week.
Aisha Muhammad, an elderly woman burning twigs to heat a kettle in government-held territory near Taiz, told Reuters she had left behind two daughters and three sons who had been unable to escape.
"They can't even go out to the market to get food and drinking water. They are being blocked and shot at, so they are trapped inside their homes," she said. "They cannot reach us, and we cannot return to them. This is a trial from God."
Iran postpones talks with neighbouring countries; cargo ship near Strait of Hormuz reportedly struck
Houthis seize strategic island, Saudis close pipeline as fighting escalates
Who are the Houthis? How they could send oil prices surging even further
On Friday the Houthis captured Perim Island, inside the Bab el-Mandeb, or the "Gate of Tears" strait, at the mouth of the Red Sea.
U.S. President Donald Trump is under pressure to end the war to relieve the global energy shortage and lower prices that are hurting the fortunes of his Republican Party ahead of midterm elections in November.
Three sources have told Reuters that Washington has so far rebuffed pleas from Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to intervene in Yemen. Trump confirmed over the weekend that he had spoken to the prince, and said the Houthis had also phoned, asking Washington to keep out of the dispute.
The United States bombed the Houthis in 2025 for two months, but Trump called off that campaign after reaching a ceasefire with the group, which he said had promised not to attack ships in the Red Sea.
Trump, who attended a golf tournament at one of his resorts in Ireland over the weekend, said he expected the Iran war to end shortly after the elections in November, after which the price of oil would "drop like a rock."
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