Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has branded Yemen’s armed Houthi movement a “terrorist militia” and accused the Iran-allied group of repeatedly targeting the holy city of Mecca. The 90-year-old Saudi monarch made the comments during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. It was a rare sharp intervention in current affairs by the king, as most day-to-day affairs are led by his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Deadly Houthi attacks this month have marked one of the greatest threats to Saudi Arabia’s security in years.
King Salman called the suspected Houthi targeting of the holy city a “heinous crime” and a provocation against Muslim sentiment worldwide, according to SPA. Last week, Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted a drone launched by the Houthis towards Mecca, an accusation that the Houthis strongly denied, with Houthi leader Abdel-Malik al-Houthi calling the Saudi claims “a heinous lie”. It was the first time in nearly 10 years that a security alert had been activated in Mecca, home to the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site. The Saudi monarch commended the military and security services for “defending the homeland and resolutely confronting any aggression against the holy sites, pilgrims, citizens and residents of the Kingdom”.
King Salman also cited a meeting between the crown prince and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Cairo last week, as well as his conversations with French President Emmanuel Macron on “efforts to enhance regional stability and ensure the security and freedom of maritime navigation”. Houthi missile and drone attacks increasingly target Saudi cities, energy infrastructure and shipping, opening another front in the wider regional conflict that began with the United States and Israel’s war on Iran in February. On Saturday, Saudi-led coalition forces in Yemen said they had intercepted a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis towards the Saudi capital Riyadh, sending a dark column of smoke from a fuel storage area at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. The escalation has also raised the stakes for global energy supplies, as Houthi fighters expanded their control to Yemen’s entire Red Sea coast, which has been used as an alternative route for Saudi oil exports amid the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Amid growing regional tensions, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan last month signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, which treats an armed attack on any of its three member countries as an attack on all three.
