Saudi Arabia cannot contain Houthis, Iran Guards say

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Thursday that Saudi Arabia would not be able to contain Yemen's Tehran-backed Houthis or remain safe from their attacks, amid increased rebel attacks on the kingdom.

“Saudi Arabia will certainly be unable to contain Yemen and Ansarullah or remain safe from their attacks,” Guards spokesman Hossein Mohebi told Defa Press, using another name for the Houthis. He said: “As we have seen in recent days, the more Saudi Arabia attacks, the more it is hit in return.”

Yemen last month became another front in the Middle East war that began on February 28 with US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Houthi attacks and an attempt to blockade Saudi Arabia's Red Sea ports followed tit-for-tat strikes in early July after an Iranian plane arrived in Sanaa.

The latest fighting has upended a 2022 truce in Yemen's war between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed internationally recognised government.

A Yemeni minister told AFP this week that the Houthis were plotting to seize land along the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which would allow them to further threaten the shipping route. Three Houthi military sources and a spokesman for Yemeni government forces battling them near the waterway also told AFP the rebels were planning to advance south from their current territory.