"Energy security can't be taken for granted."

"The events of recent weeks are serious, our response must be equally serious."

"For Saudi Arabia, these circumstances have tested our infrastructure, our institutions, our people, and our resilience."

Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, Saudi energy minister 

 

"[They -- Houthis -- will] face consequences [for their repeated attacks on the kingdom]."

"The Kingdom will not allow any threat to its security or to freedom of maritime navigation in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait."

Saudi Arabian Cabinet 

 

"[The warning and the attack show] the Saudis’ aims of upping the ante and striking deep in the heart of Houthi-controlled territory while attempting to control the narrative by presenting themselves as more careful and humanitarian actors than the Houthis."

"It may be a warning -- or it may be a sign of things to come."

Adam Baron, fellow, Washington-based New America institute

Oil tanks seen at the Saudi Aramco headquarters during a media tour at Damam city. REUTERS/ Ali Jarekji/File Photo

 

Not entirely insensitive to the Israel Defense Forces' routine pre-warning of civilians in enclaves in the Gaza Strip where the Israeli military's strategy to respond to the 7 October 2023 by destroying Palestinian terrorists' military emplacements, their weapons depots, their broadcasting systems, their labyrinthine tunnels, their leaders and their operatives, starting with the Hamas governing group which infamously has always used the civilian population as shields, the Saudi military leading a coalition of forces Tuesday on Sanaa, pre-warned the population to flee for safety.

Following the Houthi weekend strikes on Riyadh's international airport on Saturday and follow-up strikes days later, which killed 18 people and wounded hundreds more, Saudi Arabia warned the Houthis of their intention to strike back. Before they did, civilians were urged to leave the site of the Yemeni Oil Company and its nearby storage areas. That they have finally struck, it is impossible to ignore that the Middle East crisis is expanding with this series of fresh escalations behind which can be discerned the malign influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

A man looking over the skyline of Sanaa, Yemen, on Tuesday.  Credit...Mohammed Huwais/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

That the airport strikes in Saudi Arabia have added to the energy export crisis now looming over the global community with the world's top oil exporter having been targeted, the coalition's counter-targeting of Yemen's Houthi-controlled oil sites is certain to jolt the world to attention. The Yemen civil war has brought the poorest country in the environs of the Middle East starkly divided between the legitimate government, forced to surrender their capital Sanaa to the Houthi rebellion, into a crisis situation. The government supported by Saudi Arabia, and the Houthis by Iran spell the ultimate in tribal-sectarian hostilities.

 

In Saudi Arabia, operations remain suspended at the King Khalid International Airport on the outskirts of Riyadh. On Saturday, Muslim pilgrims wearing their typical religious attire were awaiting their flights in departure lounges when a sudden flash tore through the building and flaming debris rained down killing 13 outright. The Houthi drone and missile attacks had city residents sheltering for safety even as the Houthis threatened to continue targeting Saudi transit hubs as "a theatre of operations for our forces". This is the reality of a new, unequal form of conflict, where guerrilla forces of a poor nation can access killing drones to wage its war against a richer nation's conventional military's reaction.

 

Smoke over Sana’a during a reported Saudi-led coalition airstrike on the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital on 9 October 2026. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Sunday evening also saw eastern Saudi Arabia's Dammam airport hit. A day later, the Saudi-led coalition revealed that it had "intercepted and destroyed" a Houthi ballistic missile headed for a major military base in the southern city of Khamis Mushalt. The Houthi foreign ministry, referring to Saudi Arabia as the "Kingdom of the Horn of Satan -- must realize that security, stability and sovereignty must belong to everyone; otherwise, no one will enjoy them."