Since October 10, a series of Houthi attacks has disrupted commercial aviation in Saudi Arabia, forcing airlines to cancel flights, suspend services and reassess the risks of operating in the kingdom's airspace.
The latest Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia have brought Yemen's long-running conflict back into focus. But the attacks did not come out of nowhere, said Wang Jin, a professor at the Institute of Middle East Studies of Northwest University.
King Khalid International Airport is hit by the Houthis (Photo: Xinhua)
"The Houthis have targeted Saudi Arabia for years. What drew greater attention this time was the choice of an international airport, a target with high symbolic significance and potentially far-reaching impact," Wang told South.
"People may feel that the attacks came out of nowhere, but the Houthis have been attacking Saudi Arabia for a long time," Wang said. "This time, they hit an international airport, which naturally attracted much more attention."
What lies behind the renewed tensions?
The latest escalation has also raised questions about Iran's role. Wang said the Houthis have links with Tehran, but cautioned against overstating Iran's influence over their actions.
He pointed to a dispute in July, when the Houthis sent a delegation to Iran to attend the funeral of Ali Khamenei. The delegation travelled on an Iranian airline, triggering concerns over flights from Sanaa under Yemen's 2022 truce arrangements.
According to Wang, Saudi Arabia was concerned about what the delegation might bring back to Yemen and decided to strike Sanaa Airport in response. The Houthis, who viewed the attack as unjustified, then retaliated, he said.
The July dispute offers context for the renewed tensions, but it does not prove a direct causal link to the subsequent attacks on Saudi Arabia. The sequence of events and responsibility for the escalation should be treated with caution.
Iran has supported the Houthis, Wang said, but their actions cannot be explained solely by their relationship with Tehran. The group has its own political interests and calculations within Yemen, making its relationship with Iran more complex than a simple command-and-control relationship.
Could the conflict spread further?
Wang said the spillover from the US-Iran conflict could add to instability across the Middle East, making an already volatile regional situation more complicated.
Yemen's 2022 truce eased the fighting but did not resolve the underlying political disputes. The renewed confrontation shows how fragile the situation remains, with the risk of further escalation still present.
The course of the conflict will depend in part on how Saudi Arabia responds and what the Houthis do next. But Wang's broader point is that the latest attacks cannot be understood in isolation: the Houthis have their own reasons for confronting Saudi Arabia, while tensions involving other regional powers could make the conflict harder to contain.
In addition, on October 12 local time, Yemeni government forces said in a statement that they had killed about 950 Houthi militants in military operations over the past 24 hours. The statement said that, as part of Operation "Yemen Dawn," government forces had carried out 1,879 strikes on Houthi military targets.
Reporter: Yao Jingsen
Photo: Xinhua
