Houthis say they fired missiles and drones at King Khalid Air Base in Saudi Arabia
Yemen Herald News 
SANAA, Yemen — The Houthis said Monday they fired dozens of ballistic missiles and drones at a Saudi air base at Khamis Mushait, a claim Riyadh has not confirmed.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree announced the operation against King Khalid Air Base in a statement carried by the group’s media.
Saree said the strikes hit aircraft hangars, radars, runways and ammunition depots at the base.
He said the operation caused “significant losses.” He gave no figures and no account of what was destroyed.
Saree described the strikes as precise and direct.
Saudi Arabia did not immediately comment. Saudi authorities have published no confirmation of damage, of interceptions or of casualties at the base.
Saudi Civil Defence issued an alert for Khamis Mushait governorate on Monday and later said the danger had passed. It did not say what had prompted the alert.
The account of the attack rests on Saree’s statement. Yemen Herald found no independent confirmation of it, and no second origin has published one.
Saree said the operation answered what he called more than 300 Saudi airstrikes across several Yemeni provinces in the previous five days. Yemen Herald could not verify that count.
He said the group would keep firing on Saudi territory for as long as Saudi operations in Yemen continued. He warned of “broader and more severe” operations if they did.
Saudi Arabia has not published a tally of its own air operations in Yemen for that period.
King Khalid Air Base sits in the mountains of Asir province in Saudi Arabia’s southwest. It hosts Royal Saudi Air Force squadrons.
The Houthis made a similar claim a day earlier. Saree said Sunday the group had struck a Saudi base at Sharurah, in Najran province, with missiles and drones.
Saudi Arabia did not confirm that claim either.
Saudi authorities said last week that 73 people were wounded in Houthi attacks on Abha, Khamis Mushait, Jazan and Najran. That count came from the Saudi-led coalition.
The coalition said those attacks started fires at oil facilities in the kingdom.
The Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of killing seven people in an air strike on a prison in Yemen on Sept. 7, according to Al Jazeera. Saudi Arabia did not confirm that account.
Yemen’s cabinet condemned drone attacks on the East-West pipeline that carries Saudi crude to the Red Sea.
The Security Council held an emergency session on the attacks last week. Hans Grundberg, the UN special envoy for Yemen, condemned Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia at the time.
The United Kingdom told the council that the Houthis bear responsibility for the escalation. The group rejects that account.
Yemen’s foreign ministry asked the council this month to take what it called a firm position on the escalation.
Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, said the Houthis would bear the consequences of what he called a military adventure.
The European Union, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain and Russia have each condemned the attacks on Saudi Arabia in statements this month.
Pakistan said Houthi attacks on the kingdom could activate its defence pact with Riyadh.
The exchanges run alongside fighting on the ground in Yemen’s southwest.
Houthi forces took the Red Sea port of Mocha in Taiz province on Sept. 10, according to Al Jazeera. They took Perim island, also known as Mayyun, in the middle of the Bab al-Mandeb strait the following day.
Government forces withdrew from both. The advances gave the group positions on the eastern side of the strait.
The Yemeni government disputes the Houthi account of that fighting. The two sides publish separate versions of engagements along the coast.
Reuters reported that two Iranian sources said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps encouraged the Houthi advance on the coast and provided support for it. Iran has not commented publicly on that account.
Bab al-Mandeb carries a share of Saudi crude exports that has grown this year. Restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz pushed more Saudi seaborne shipments onto the Red Sea route, Time reported.
Brent crude traded above $108 a barrel last week, with a Saudi pipeline shut and the Houthis holding positions at the strait.
The Houthis said Sunday evening that Saudi Arabia had flown 58 airstrikes across Yemen in the previous 24 hours. That figure has not been independently confirmed.
Displacement from the fighting has climbed through September. The International Organization for Migration said 85,818 people have fled their homes, and that more than 2,000 have reached Djibouti.
The agency had put the figure at 46,000 on Thursday and at 76,000 on Saturday.
The United Nations estimated more than 80,000 people displaced since the start of the month.
The Houthis declared a maritime blockade in July. Displacement in the southwest has been counted from that month.
The UN humanitarian plan for Yemen, published in March, put more than 22 million people in need of aid and 18.3 million as acutely food insecure. It sought $2.16 billion to reach 12 million people.
Project Masam, the Saudi-funded demining programme, said it cleared 2,166 mines and other munitions in Yemen in the first 11 days of September.
Saree did not say when the missiles and drones were launched, or how many of each were used.
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