Saudi-led coalition says it intercepted two Houthi missiles aimed at Taif and Yanbu
Yemen Herald News 
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted two Houthi ballistic missiles fired at the western Saudi cities of Taif and Yanbu on Saturday.
No casualties or damage were reported.
Saudi Civil Defence issued warnings of potential danger in four western regions, including Taif, Yanbu and Mecca. It told residents to move to the nearest safe place.
The alerts were withdrawn within minutes of being issued.
The agency later said the danger had passed in Mecca, Yanbu, Jeddah and Taif, Yemen’s state news agency, Saba, reported.
Saudi authorities gave no further detail about the missiles. They did not say where the launches came from, or what the intended targets were.
The civil defence agency also warned residents against circulating images or information about interceptions. It cited a legal notice covering the publication of details of Saudi defensive operations.
The coalition’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki, has announced its previous interceptions.
The account of Saturday’s interceptions rests on the coalition and the Saudi civil defence agency, both parties to the conflict. Yemen Herald found no independent confirmation of the military details, and Saudi authorities have asked media not to publish them.
The Houthis did not publish a claim of responsibility for the Taif and Yanbu launches. The group denied launching drones at the kingdom in a separate statement this month.
Saturday’s announcement followed a similar one a day earlier.
The coalition said on Friday that it shot down two Houthi ballistic missiles, one aimed at Riyadh and the other at Khamis Mushait. It said two armed drones directed at the kingdom’s southern region had been destroyed about three hours before that.
Al-Maliki said the missile headed for the capital was destroyed shortly after 4 a.m. He announced the interceptions on X.
No casualties were reported from those interceptions either. Civil defence alerts sounded in Riyadh, Abha and Khamis Mushait, and were lifted within about an hour.
On October 8 the coalition said it intercepted three Houthi ballistic missiles.
Houthi attacks have set off civil defence alerts in Saudi cities repeatedly since early September, Al Jazeera reported on September 10.
On the Yemeni side of the exchange, the Houthi-run Al-Masirah television channel said airstrikes on Sanaa governorate killed 11 people on Saturday.
The broadcaster said at least four died when a strike hit a house, and that six women and a child were killed when a strike hit housing for cement factory workers.
Other outlets relaying Houthi sources put the toll at 12.
Yemen Herald could not verify those figures. The accounts come from Houthi-aligned sources, and the reported location of the cement factory differs between them.
The coalition did not comment on the Sanaa strikes.
Fighting has continued on several fronts inside Yemen.
Government forces were advancing in Marib, Al Jazeera reported on October 13.
An Al Jazeera correspondent reported Houthi mortar shelling on a neighbourhood in central Taiz the same day.
The exchanges form part of a round of fighting that began in early September.
Saudi Arabia said 73 people were wounded on September 8, when Houthi forces attacked civilian and energy sites in the kingdom. Al Jazeera reported the figure at the time, attributing it to a Saudi official.
The Saudi aviation authority said two people died in an attack on Dammam airport this week.
Dammam lies in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, the centre of the kingdom’s oil industry.
The Arab League condemned that attack and a strike on the Shaybah oil field. Spain also condemned the Dammam attack.
The Shaybah field lies in the Empty Quarter, near the border with the United Arab Emirates.
The European Parliament has urged the European Union to add the Houthis to its list of terrorist organisations.
The United States ordered some of its diplomats and their families to leave Saudi Arabia over the threat from Houthi attacks.
Egypt’s parliament authorised the deployment of forces to defend Saudi Arabia. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said Egyptian forces would not attack Yemen.
Yemen’s foreign minister has asked France to help curb Houthi military capabilities.
Yanbu is a Red Sea port and the site of oil terminals and refining capacity. Taif lies in the highlands east of Mecca.
Mecca receives millions of pilgrims each year.
The Houthis have fired missiles and drones into Saudi territory at intervals since 2015, when the coalition intervened in Yemen’s war in support of the internationally recognised government.
Yemen’s internationally recognised government is based in Aden. The Houthis hold Sanaa and much of the north.
The coalition began its campaign in March 2015.
The two sides give conflicting accounts of the exchanges, and each disputes the other’s descriptions of what was launched and what was hit.
The war has left more than 22 million people in Yemen in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations.
The UN’s March 2026 response plan put the number of acutely food insecure at 18.3 million, and recorded 5.2 million internally displaced people.
It said more than 2.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished, including 516,157 with severe acute malnutrition.
The plan sought $2.16 billion to reach 12 million people.
Saba carried the civil defence announcement without additional detail.
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