Gulf States Cancel Meeting with Iran as Houthis Launch New Attack On Saudi Arabia

AP

Ships at the Strait of Hormuz.

Gulf Arab states have cancelled a meeting with Iran that was scheduled for Monday, while Yemen's Houthis launched a fresh attack on Saudi Arabia, as fighting continues to widen the Middle East conflict and further threatens global oil supplies.

The Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen said they fired dozens of missiles and drones on Monday at a Saudi military ‌airbase in Khamis Mushait, near the border, hitting aircraft hangars, radar systems, runways and ammunition depots. They described the attack as retaliation for hundreds of Saudi airstrikes on Yemen in recent days.

Saudi authorities announced brief emergency alerts there and in three other southern cities which have previously come under Houthi fire.

The Houthis launched a lightning advance last week in Yemen, culminating in the seizure of an island in the mouth of the Red Sea on Friday. A separate attack that day, which Riyadh blamed on Iran-backed fighters in Iraq, knocked out Saudi Arabia's east-west pipeline, the main route for Middle East oil bypassing the blockaded Strait of Hormuz.

Crude oil prices rose more than 3% on Monday, when the market reopened after the weekend, while the politically sensitive average retail price of diesel ⁠in the United States hit a new all-time high above $6.23 a gallon.

Traders say the closure of the Saudi pipeline could cut off as much as 4% of global oil supply unless it is reopened within days. Images from space show sections of the pipeline damaged by blazes. Riyadh has not given a firm estimate for how long it will be shut.

Oman had been due to host a meeting on Monday with Iran and Gulf states to discuss negotiations aimed at reopening Hormuz, the world's most important oil shipping lane, largely closed since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February.

But Oman's Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi announced overnight that the meeting had been postponed "in the interests of consensus". Iran said the postponement was at the request of Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, Iran issued a list of 77 ships it said had violated its protocols for operating in the Strait of Hormuz. Any ship on the list would face "restrictions on future passages, including fines, detention, or confiscation", and other ships that assisted them by accepting transfers of cargo would be added to the list.

The upsurge of fighting in Yemen poses a dilemma for Washington, which is under pressure to aid its Saudi allies but anxious not ‌to expand ⁠the costly war to a new theatre.

Saudi Arabia has led an Arab coalition battling the Houthis for more than a decade, after the mountain fighters captured Yemen's capital in 2014. The war there had largely been quiet under a ceasefire for the past few years, but fighting has now resumed, with the Houthis driving back forces from a Saudi-backed government based in the south.

Thousands of Yemenis have fled inland from the coast to escape fighting as the Houthis swept into cities including the historic Red Sea port of Mocha last week.

On Friday the Houthis captured Perim Island, inside the Bab el-Mandeb, the "Gate of Tears" strait, at the mouth of the Red Sea.

Source: Reuters



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