Yemen’s government backs coalition measures after alleged Houthi drone attempt on Mecca
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — Yemen’s government condemned a Houthi attempt to attack Mecca with a drone and backed coalition military measures against the group, a cabinet statement said Wednesday.
The statement described the attempt as part of continued Houthi escalation and said it threatened regional security, Islamic holy sites and civilians, the state news agency Saba reported.
The government said it stood with Saudi Arabia. It called the security of the Two Holy Mosques and the safety of pilgrims red lines.
The cabinet endorsed what it described as the lawful and necessary measures announced by the Coalition to Support Legitimacy to counter Houthi threats and to protect Saudi territory.
It held the Houthis responsible for the escalation and said Iran continued to arm and fund them. Iran denies supplying the group.
Saba was the only outlet to report the cabinet’s deliberations. Yemen Herald found no independent confirmation of the session, and the account of what ministers discussed rests on the agency’s report.
The incident behind the statement is disputed.
The Saudi-led coalition said its air defences destroyed a drone south of Mecca on Tuesday evening, before it entered restricted airspace over the city. Col. Turki al-Maliki, the coalition spokesman, said the Royal Saudi Air Defence Forces brought the aircraft down.
Al-Maliki said it was the second attempt on the city. The first was a ballistic missile fired toward Mecca in 2017, he said.
The coalition said its Joint Forces Command would not hesitate to take deterrent measures against the group.
The Houthis rejected the account. Hazem al-Assad, a member of the group’s politburo, wrote on X that claims about targeting Mecca were “a worn-out lie that has been used before and no longer fools anyone.”
A Houthi military source said there was no threat from Yemen directed at Mecca or at any other holy site.
Mecca lies about 1,100 kilometres, or 680 miles, from the Yemeni border. Neither the launch nor the interception has been independently verified. No casualties were reported.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, which groups 57 member states, condemned what it called a heinous attack. Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, described it in similar terms.
The statement came as fighting in Yemen widened.
Houthi forces took the Red Sea port of Mocha on Sept. 10 and the island of Mayyun, also known as Perim, the following day, Al Jazeera reported.
Khaled Khiari, a UN assistant secretary-general, told the Security Council on Tuesday that the group had continued its advance toward the Bab al-Mandab Strait and had reportedly captured several islands in the southern Red Sea.
He said at least 125,000 people had been displaced across Yemen since the start of September. He put civilian casualties over the same period at 40, more than half of them women and children.
About 2,300 people have reached Djibouti after fleeing the fighting, Khiari said. He said more arrivals were expected.
Khiari said Houthi missile and drone strikes on Saudi Arabia on Sept. 14 caused casualties and damaged homes in several cities. He did not give a figure.
The Houthis have linked their strikes on Saudi Arabia to Saudi operations inside Yemen. The group said attacks on southern Saudi Arabia on Sept. 8 answered a raid on a prison in al-Jawf governorate that it said killed seven people, including a child. Saudi Arabia has not confirmed that account.
Yemen’s government has mounted a counteroffensive that included air strikes, he said, citing unconfirmed estimates of hundreds of combatant casualties in recent days.
Commercial shipping through the Red Sea appeared unaffected for the time being, Khiari said, citing maritime tracking sites.
Saudi Arabia condemned the targeting of the East-West Pipeline on Sept. 12 by drones that Khiari said were reportedly launched from inside Iraq. Iraq’s prime minister said Baghdad would investigate. The pipeline shut for repairs.
The Security Council met in emergency session on Tuesday at the request of France, which holds the presidency this month. It was the second emergency meeting on Yemen in less than a week.
Yemen’s representative told the Council that the Bab al-Mandab Strait was Yemeni land and water, and said his government could regain control of the coastline. He described Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia as part of a single threat architecture.
Saudi Arabia’s representative said his government had supported calm and backed UN efforts toward a settlement, and said the Houthis continued to reject one.
Hans Grundberg, the UN special envoy, told the Council on Aug. 13 that Yemen faced a greater risk of a return to large-scale conflict than at any point since the truce mediated by the United Nations in 2022.
Grundberg asked the Houthis to release 73 UN personnel he said were still being held arbitrarily, along with colleagues from non-governmental organisations.
Tom Fletcher, the UN humanitarian chief, told the same session that 6 million people in Yemen faced emergency levels of deprivation, the highest number of any country. He said the humanitarian appeal was about 20 per cent funded.
Council resolution 2140, adopted in 2014, created the Yemen sanctions regime. Resolution 2216, adopted on April 14, 2015, imposed a targeted arms embargo on the Houthis, and resolution 2722, adopted on Jan. 10, 2024, demanded that the group stop attacking commercial shipping.
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