The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthis has said it intercepted a ballistic missile fired by the Iran-aligned armed group towards the Medina region, home to one of Islam’s holiest cities.
The announcement on Thursday came just minutes after Saudi Arabia’s civil defence agency warned of potential danger in the area near the strategic port of Yanbu.
“Air defence intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the terrorist Houthi militia toward the Medina region,” coalition spokesman Turki al-Malki said in a post on X.
The Houthis, an armed group also known as Ansar Allah (Arabic for Supporters of God), have rejected any suggestion they were targeting the city, saying such accusations were a “blatant and grave falsehood”.
Houthi Military spokesman Yahya Saree wrote on X that “our operations target only oil facilities and military bases” and called the allegation a lie.
Among their attacks on airports, energy infrastructure and military sites, the Houthis have targeted the port of Yanbu on several occasions in recent months.
“A warning has been issued by the National Early Warning Platform in Yanbu Governorate to alert of a potential danger,” read a statement published by the agency online.
The agency later announced that the threat had passed.
Yanbu is a major oil export hub and a key outlet for oil shipments transported through the kingdom’s East-West pipeline.
The port and pipeline have played a key role since the outbreak of the United States-Israeli war on Iran in February, helping Riyadh ship crude and fuel to global markets.
Separately, Yemen’s internationally recognised government forces made gains in the Sanamat area in Taiz governorate, where fighting continues to rage.
Colonel Majed Abdullah al-Nazili said on Thursday that government forces carried out 1,298 “targeting operations” against the Houthis in the past 24 hours and “managed to gain control” of Sanamat.
The latest operations killed about 400 Houthi fighters and destroyed 132 vehicles, cars or heavy weapons placements, he said. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the claims.
Yemeni government forces previously reclaimed Taiz’s Dhubab district and key positions near the critical Bab al-Mandeb strait.
Meanwhile, on the al-Jawf front, military engineering units continue to clear recaptured sites of mines and booby traps, al-Nazili added.
Late last month, the government said 16,100 Houthi operatives and commanders had been killed or wounded since October 5.
The Houthis have not confirmed a death toll and have in the meantime been firing missiles regularly towards Saudi Arabia, hitting multiple airports and disrupting air traffic over the kingdom.
Yazeed al-Jeddawy, a research manager at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, told Al Jazeera that the course of the conflict increasingly appears to be moving towards a prolonged war of attrition as the government offensive has not shifted the balance of power over the past 30 days.
“The conflict is no longer driven solely by the dynamics inside Yemen; it is intertwined with the wider regional confrontation and the war involving Iran,” he added.
