Saudi cities struck in expansion of Mideast war

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have become an increasingly disruptive force in the Middle East in recent years, striking Israel, Saudi Arabia and a global shipping route in solidarity with Iran and allied armed groups.
Tehran-backed Houthis attacked four cities in the south of US ally Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, wounding more than 70 people and setting oil installations ablaze in what appeared to be a major expansion of the six-month-old Middle East war.
The Houthis, who control most of Yemen's populated areas including the capital, said they had launched a broad operation deep into Saudi territory. They used drones and missiles to strike a Saudi airbase in the southern city of Khamis Mushait, and targets belonging to Saudi Arabia's state oil company in nearby Abha, Najran on the Yemeni border, and Jazan, a major Red Sea port city that houses a large refinery and power plant.
NASA satellite images showed a thick cloud of black smoke over the Jazan refinery and a column of white smoke rising from an oil distribution centre in Abha.
Saudi authorities described blazes at the sites and said women and children were among the 73 people hurt. The reports of such large numbers of wounded suggested the attacks were among the biggest carried out against Saudi Arabia since the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran in February.
No confirmed images from the ground of the aftermath of the attacks on Saudi cities were immediately available, and witnesses could not be reached in a country where media is tightly controlled. The Houthis released pictures of explosions of what they said were trucks from Saudi Arabia they had hit in separate strikes at the border in another area the previous day.
Houthi-controlled media reported later on Tuesday that Saudi warplanes had carried out airstrikes in Yemen's Jubah district east of the capital Sanaa and Taiz province in the southwest.
"The coalition will take all necessary operational measures to deter this terrorist militia and resolutely confronts its hostile approach," Turki al-Malki, spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition, said in a statement on X.
Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree accused Riyadh of having escalated the war by launching airstrikes on Yemen, and said the Houthis would respond.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Tuesday said they seized an unmanned American submarine in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran has blockaded in the months-long Middle East war.
"The IRGC naval forces captured one of the most modern, unmanned, and smart submarines of the US terrorist army at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz in a complex intelligence and operational action at dawn today," the Guards said in a statement carried by state TV.