CAIRO (AP) — Debris from an intercepted Houthi drone has killed a Yemeni resident of Saudi Arabia, the Saudi civil defense said Thursday. It is the first civilian casualty since the Iran-backed rebels have increased their attacks against the kingdom, targeting Saudi shipping and oil facilities.
Two other people were injured, including a Saudi woman and a Pakistani resident who is in critical condition, in the western province of Taif, the civil defense
said in an update on X. The debris also damaged vehicles and buildings. The statement didn’t give details on when exactly this happened.
On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia said the Iran-backed Houthi rebels had tried to attack Mecca, Islam's holiest city, with a drone that it said was intercepted. The Houthis denied the accusation.
In a recent lightning advance in Yemen that's escalating tensions regionally, the rebels seized a key port city and strategic islands in the Red Sea, threatening to further disrupt international shipping already affected by the Iran war.
On Thursday, the foreign affairs ministries of Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait all condemned the Houthis' deadly drone attack in Taif province. The countries, which host U.S. military bases and forces, have repeatedly come under drone and missile attack from Iran since the U.S. and Israel launched the war against Iran on Feb. 28.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty also said “there is no excuse for attacking” Saudi Arabia. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said his country was “deeply concerned” at the drone attack.
Saudi Arabia has so far seemed reluctant to unleash a major military campaign against the Houthis, wary of bringing greater Houthi attacks on its oil infrastructure and being dragged back into an all-out civil war in Yemen, its southern neighbor.
As Houthi attacks continue, the kingdom faces a potential decision about whether to step up its military response or seek a diplomatic solution. Regional officials have recently suggested that Saudi Arabia is running low on missile interceptors and has turned to regional and Western allies for assistance.
On Thursday, in a pre-recorded speech, the leader of the Iran-backed group, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, denounced what he called Saudi Arabia’s “utterly heinous lies,” referring to the claim that the group targeted Mecca.
The rebel group’s leader called for mass protests on Friday in Sanaa and Houthi-controlled areas to show support for protecting holy mosques. He called for an end to the Saudi blockade on Yemen.
In a social media post on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said that a claim of intercepting a drone shouldn’t be turned into an accusation against any specific party or used to escalate tensions. He also condemned attacks on Islamic holy sites.
On Wednesday, the Houthis had claimed to have downed a Saudi F-15 fighter jet operated by the Saudi-backed coalition over Yemen’s central province of Marib, though they didn’t say when it happened.
In a video released by the rebel group’s media channels, Houthi fighters were shown gathering around what they described as the wreckage of an F-15 emblazoned with a Saudi flag. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim. Saudi officials didn't comment on the claim.
The growing tensions are impacting the Iran war, too, especially since the Houthis captured the port city of Mokha and an island on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which is a crucial shipping alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. That is adding pressure on global oil supplies and prices.
The Houthis have said they are targeting only Saudi-linked vessels, and container ships and oil tankers continued to transit the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, according to shipping analytics firm Windward. But the blockade of Saudi vessels has disrupted a crucial workaround for oil exports bottled up by Iran’s chokehold over Hormuz.
Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen, forcing the government into exile. Saudi Arabia has led an international coalition fighting the rebels and also imposed an air and sea blockade on Houthi-held parts of Yemen.
The renewed fighting in Yemen has displaced at least 125,000 people who have fled, many with only what they could carry, as the Houthis have advanced down the Red Sea coast. Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, was pushed to the brink of famine in an earlier phase of the civil war, which killed an estimated 150,000 people.
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Associated Press journalist Giovanna Dell'Orto contributed from Minneapolis.
