Houthis repeat threats against Saudi oil giant, aviation

• Houthis repeated threats against Saudi Aramco and aviation, saying facilities are “within range” and warning airlines to avoid Saudi airspace.
• The conflict has intensified since July, with attacks killing 24 in Saudi Arabia and an airport strike in Riyadh killing at least 13.
• The war has displaced more than 300,000 people in western Yemen, while the UN says more than 1,600 have been killed since fighting restarted.

SANAA – Houthi media, citing an anonymous military official, on Nov 1 repeated threats against Saudi oil giant Aramco and aviation in the kingdom.

Yemen’s Houthis, fighting a Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally recognised government, are allies of Iran, which on Nov 1 warned the US and Israel not to renew strikes on the Islamic republic after they had threatened a return to war.

“Aramco facilities are within range of the Yemeni Armed Forces, and investments in them are a venture fraught with losses,” the Houthis’ Saba news agency quoted the military official as saying.

The official also warned international airlines against using Saudi airspace “except for the airspaces of Mecca and Medina”.

The Houthis have targeted oil facilities and airports in the kingdom since Yemen’s once-dormant war reignited in July, killing 24 people in Saudi Arabia in October.

An Oct 10 strike on Riyadh’s international airport became the deadliest on Saudi soil in years when it killed at least 13 people.

On Nov 1, the coalition said it had intercepted a missile and a drone both launched by the Houthis “towards the southern region”.

Meanwhile, fighting in Yemen has displaced more than 300,000 people in the western part of the impoverished country.

Most of them forced from their homes in the last two months, the displaced “urgently need shelter, food, clean water and health care”, the International Organization for Migration said in a statement on Nov 1.

The United Nations says more than 1,600 people have been killed since fighting in Yemen reignited.

Saba on Nov 1 said that Saudi Arabia had “targeted the Faculty of Medicine at Hodeidah University with two raids”, and two Hodeidah residents told AFP they heard an explosion in the area.

The coalition, for its part, said on Nov 1 it had conducted “a precision operation to neutralise vital resources” used by the Houthis, and published video footage that it said showed attacks on the Hodeideh and Dhamar governorates.

A fragile 2022 truce fell apart in July after the Houthis allowed an Iranian plane to land in Yemen’s capital Sanaa in defiance of Saudi control over Yemeni airspace, setting off a spate of attacks. AFP