Trump accuses Houthis of driving up oil prices before US midterm elections

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WASHINGTON, United States — US President Donald Trump accused Yemen’s Houthis on Tuesday of attacking Saudi Arabia to drive up oil prices before November’s midterm elections.

“The Houthis are behaving very badly,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

He said the group had resumed its attacks at Iran’s direction, after a period of relative calm that followed US strikes in Yemen last year.

Trump offered no evidence that Iran had ordered the strikes. The Houthis made no public response to the claim.

He said he had spoken that day with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about the attacks on the kingdom.

“I’ll be there after the elections, and I will never forget!” he wrote.

The midterm elections are on Nov. 3.

Trump announced no new US military action, and did not say what a response would involve.

The Houthis have fired repeatedly at Saudi territory this month.

An attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh killed 12 people and wounded 309, the General Authority of Civil Aviation said. The toll later rose to 13 after an injured Indian national died, Reuters reported. The airport was closed.

Yahya Saree, the Houthi military spokesman, said on Wednesday that his forces had targeted Aramco facilities in Dhahran and struck Riyadh airport and a refinery in the capital.

He said the operations would continue in the coming days.

An official at the Saudi Ministry of Energy said a building belonging to Aramco in Dhahran had been hit. The official said the strike caused a limited fire and no casualties.

The Saudi Council of Ministers met in Riyadh on Tuesday under Mohammed bin Salman.

It warned that the Houthis would face consequences for repeated attacks on the kingdom, and said Saudi Arabia would not allow freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait to be threatened.

The cabinet condemned attacks on Saudi airports and on Makkah and Madinah, and offered condolences to the families of those killed.

It commended the coalition supporting Yemen’s government for its operations against the group, and thanked states and organisations that had condemned the attacks.

The cabinet said the coalition’s operations were intended to remove the threat the Houthis pose to global trade and international supply chains.

Ministers also noted the resumption of oil flows through the East-West pipeline, which was shut after a drone attack on Sept. 11.

The Houthis reject the descriptions the Saudi government applies to them. They present their attacks as a response to the coalition’s campaign in Yemen.

Yemen’s internationally recognised government has fought the Houthis since 2014, the year the group took Sanaa.

The conflict intensified during an eight-month war between the United States and Iran, Reuters reported.

A truce agreed in 2022 has broken down over recent months, according to Al Jazeera.

The Houthis have also stepped up attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

Government forces are pressing an offensive they call Dawn of Yemen.

Majeed al-Nuzaili, a spokesman for the forces, said on Wednesday that they had carried out 2,309 targeting operations and destroyed 460 Houthi military vehicles.

Al-Nuzaili had put the campaign’s tally at 1,879 strikes and 380 destroyed vehicles on Monday.

Those figures are the government’s own. They have not been independently confirmed.

The campaign aims to retake coastal territory the Houthis seized near the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, has said the operation is meant to recover all territory still held by the group, including Sanaa.

Government forces said they had retaken areas in Sabr al-Mawadim and al-Sarari in Taiz governorate and repelled an attack west of Taiz city. The Houthis have not confirmed those losses.

The government has asked for reinforcements and for Saudi air support against positions the group took in the districts of al-Misrakh and at-Turbah, which lead into Taiz city.

Government sources said troops captured 81 Houthi fighters in the al-Dhabab area on Monday.

Government forces and allied fighters are engaged on several fronts in Taiz governorate, among them al-Dhabab, Jabal Han, al-Shaqb and al-Misrakh.

Coalition air strikes have forced Houthi withdrawals, though government forces have not held some of the positions they took, Al Jazeera’s correspondent reported. He said the pattern had repeated since early September.

The Saudi-led coalition struck Sanaa, the Houthi-held capital, Al Jazeera reported.

Houthi-affiliated media reported air strikes on Kamaran Island and the al-Qanawis district of Hodeidah, and on Harf Sufyan in Amran.

Forces aligned with the government said on Thursday that they had intercepted a drone flying toward Madinah and a missile fired at Riyadh.

Inside Yemen, the Houthis besieged Taiz city earlier this month, Al Jazeera reported.

Al Arabiya reported that about 172,000 people had been displaced in Taiz governorate.

The World Food Programme said on Wednesday that wheat flour stocks in the country were close to exhausted.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said hospitals near the front lines in Marib, Taiz and along the Red Sea coast were receiving more weapon-wounded patients than at any point it had recorded.

It said some facilities had admitted more than 700 casualties in a single week.

Trump’s post made no mention of the fighting inside Yemen.