Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said on Thursday that they targeted an airport and a facility belonging to state-owned oil giant Aramco in Saudi Arabia’s southern Najran region, near the Yemeni border.
They later announced a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and began hitting its ships, airports and oil facilities.
Yemen, embroiled in more than a decade of civil conflict, in July became the latest country to be dragged into the Middle East war as the Houthis upended a 2022 truce with the country’s Saudi-backed government.
This week, a Yemeni minister told AFP that the Houthi rebels were plotting to seize land along the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which would allow them to further threaten the vital shipping artery. Three Houthi military sources, as well as a spokesman for the Yemeni government forces battling them near the waterway, also told AFP the rebels were planning to advance south from their current territory.
