By Mohammed Ghobari and Jana Choukeir
DUBAI, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Houthi fighters pushed to seize strategic heights in Yemen on Monday to cut off the Red Sea coast from remaining areas held by Saudi-backed forces, after a report that President Donald Trump had called off US strikes on the group at the last minute.
A lightning advance by the Iran-backed group this month has extended the wider Middle East conflict to a new theatre and further threatened global energy supplies.
Washington has so far rebuffed
repeated pleas from Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to join the fight in Yemen. The Houthis said on Saturday they had fired on Riyadh, where loud booms were followed by columns of smoke visible near the airport.
Saudi Arabia has not commented on the first apparent strikes on the capital since the escalation began.
The New York Times reported that the Trump administration had prepared on Sunday to launch airstrikes against the Houthis after fresh pleas from the Saudi crown prince. But the newspaper said Trump called off the airstrikes at the last minute, even as troops were loading bombs onto aircraft.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report. The US military's Central Command referred questions to the White House. The White House did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Trump spoke on Sunday to Rashid al-Alimi, president of Yemen's Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government, who asked him for US military help, four sources told Reuters. Two of the sources, one Yemeni and one Western, said Trump made no direct pledge of military support during the call.
FIGHTING IN HIGHLANDS
The Houthis, who have controlled Yemen's capital since 2014, seized the country's Red Sea coast this month in an advance that routed forces of the Saudi-backed government.
Saudi Arabia has launched hundreds of strikes in recent days on the fighters' positions in the highlands, the Houthis say.
According to the United Nations, nearly 700 people have been killed and thousands injured in the flare-up in fighting. Nearly 130,000 Yemenis have fled homes within Yemen, and more than 3,000 have fled by boat across the Red Sea to Africa.
Five Yemeni military sources told Reuters the Houthis were now seeking to seize strategic heights, known as the Kahboub Mountains, in two provinces, Taiz and Lahij, which separate the Red Sea coast from the government-held south.
Fighting has centred on the outskirts of the remote mountain Al-Wazi'iyah district in Taiz province, and Ras al-Ara along the Indian Ocean coast between the mouth of the Red Sea that the fighters captured last week and the government's base in Aden.
The Houthis aim to secure the rear of their forces around the Bab al-Mandab Strait leading into the Red Sea by taking control of the heights, according to the sources. That would let them open new fronts and help protect their new positions.
SAUDI OIL EXPORTS
The surge in fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis creates a dilemma for Trump, under pressure to help defend Washington's Saudi allies but anxious not to further expand the deeply unpopular war he launched in February against Iran.
The United States bombed the Houthis for two months in early 2025, but Trump called off those strikes after reaching a ceasefire with the group and has kept out of the conflict since.
The Houthis' newfound control of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait risks cutting off the main alternative route that Saudi Arabia has used for oil exports that bypass disruption in the Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia has responded by increasing shipments through Hormuz, where a small number of tankers are increasingly shuttling back and forth to bring out oil, charging record fees of as much as a quarter of the value of the cargo to brave the wartime risk. They then transfer the oil to other ships in the Indian Ocean, bound for customers in Asia or elsewhere.
Satellite data shows Saudi exports through Hormuz reaching 2.9 million barrels per day in recent days, up from just 700,000 in August, making up for a halt to Saudi loadings on the Red Sea.
That has helped put a cap on the global price of crude oil, which has retreated closer to $100 a barrel after approaching $110 last week. But consumers and industry are still paying record prices for refined fuels.
The US retail price of diesel, politically sensitive for Trump, hit another all-time high on Monday above $6.51 a gallon, from around $3.75 before the war began in February.
In the latest reported attack in Hormuz, Britain's UKMTO maritime security agency said a ship sailing into the strait had been hit with a projectile, causing minor injuries to crew.
Diplomacy in the wider conflict has largely been stalled since a June interim agreement between the United States and Iran collapsed within weeks. Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian is due to fly on Tuesday to New York to attend the UN General Assembly, the first such visit since Trump launched "Operation Epic Fury" against his country alongside Israel in February.
(Reporting by Reuters bureauxWriting by Peter Graff; Editing by Jon Boyle)
