Houthis say hit Saudi Arabia as Trump weighs harder Iran strikes

Yemen's Houthi movement said it carried out a missile strike on the Saudi Arabian city of Jizan on Saturday, just hours after vowing retaliation against the kingdom for earlier attacks. The strike marks a significant escalation in a Middle East conflict that has been expanding on multiple fronts in recent months, drawing in Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Houthis, and the United States.

The attack followed a series of tit-for-tat strikes between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia. On Friday, Saudi forces struck Houthi military targets in the port city of Hodeida. Rebel-affiliated media reported that two people were wounded in that strike. The Houthis had previously declared a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil producer, and had targeted Saudi vessels in the Red Sea. According to reports, this blockade began earlier in the week and disrupted shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a critical route connecting Asia and Europe via the Suez Canal.

The Houthi movement, formally known as Ansar Allah, accused Saudi Arabia of a "dangerous escalation." Its political bureau said, according to reporting cited from Tasnim news agency, that recent Saudi actions "will not go unanswered." This warning came shortly before the group claimed the missile attack on Jizan.

The confrontation between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia is not an isolated development but part of a broader regional conflict that intensified following US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February. Iran, which has long backed the Houthis, has simultaneously imposed its own blockade on the Strait of Hormuz — Saudi Arabia's only other major maritime export route. This leaves the kingdom facing pressure on two critical shipping chokepoints at once.

In Washington, the Trump administration is weighing tougher military measures against Iran. President Donald Trump said the United States was "locked and loaded" and vowed "major military punishment" for Tehran and its Houthi allies in Yemen. At the same time, he left open the possibility of a diplomatic deal with Iran, though he said he did not "think it's time yet" to reach an agreement. According to the South China Morning Post, US missiles struck targets across Iran again on Friday, following 13 consecutive nights of American strikes on Iranian military targets — though the US military notably did not issue its usual daily strike announcement on Saturday.

Adding to the tension, the US Central Command (Centcom) said it had disabled a tanker attempting to evade the American blockade on Iranian ports. Navy Captain Tim Hawkins, a Centcom spokesman, said the tanker's crew had tried to run the blockade at least four times and had been repeatedly warned before US forces fired into the ship's engine room, disabling it. Hawkins said the vessel was no longer transiting toward Iran.

Analysts have warned for days about the economic consequences of the widening conflict. According to an assessment cited by the Russian news agency TASS, sustained disruption of shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait would force Saudi Arabia to bear higher security costs and accept reduced flexibility in its export shipments. The BBC has also reported that the Houthi attacks are raising fears of a broader Middle East conflict and further global economic damage, given the importance of the affected shipping lanes to international trade.

Several questions remain unresolved. It is unclear how Saudi Arabia will respond to the latest strike on Jizan, and whether the exchange of attacks between the kingdom and the Houthis will continue to escalate. It is also uncertain what concrete steps the Trump administration will take next regarding Iran, and whether diplomatic efforts will proceed alongside the military threats. Taken together, the multiple active fronts — the direct US-Israeli conflict with Iran, Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and the renewed hostilities between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis — point to an elevated risk of further regional escalation, with potentially significant consequences for global oil supplies and international shipping.