The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Ansar Allah group in Yemen (Houthis) said Thursday that the group this week targeted an electricity distribution station in Medina, knocking one of the transformers out of service, but without affecting the electricity grid.
The coalition stated that the investigation and examination of the wreckage of a drone confirmed the group’s involvement in planning and carrying out the attack that occurred on Tuesday.
He pointed out that the station supplies the Prophet’s Mosque with electricity.
The Saba News Agency, run by the Ansar Allah group, quoted what it described as a “military source in the Ministry of Defense” in the government it runs, saying that the Saudi accusation of targeting the power station was “unfounded” and described it as a “lie” and aimed at covering up what it described as Saudi Arabia’s inability to prove its previous accusation that the group targeted Mecca.
Two weeks ago, Saudi Arabia announced that it had intercepted and destroyed a drone launched by the Ansar Allah group, south of Mecca, before it entered the prohibited airspace of the Holy City.
The coalition described this incident as the second attempt by the group to target Mecca since 2017, while the group denied targeting Mecca or any other holy Islamic site.
The coalition said that the Medina attack comes within the framework of what it described as repeated attempts by the Houthis to target the Two Holy Mosques and “provoke” Muslims around the world, stressing that it continues to take measures to protect the holy sites and their visitors.
"Dangerous going too far"
The Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jassim Al-Budaiwi, condemned the attack.
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Al-Budaiwi considered that this attack "crossed all red lines and is a blatant provocation to the feelings of Muslims around the world, and a dangerous continuation of violating the sanctity of Islamic sanctities."
The latest wave of escalation is the most serious between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-aligned Houthis since a UN-brokered truce largely halted cross-border attacks in 2022.
Hostilities were renewed this year after the group announced the imposition of a ban on maritime navigation on Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea in July, and they began attacking Saudi territory and shipping traffic, coinciding with the Houthi forces achieving significant field gains on the coast of Yemen overlooking the Red Sea.
On September 11, the group completed its control of the Bab al-Mandab Strait following the withdrawal of government forces from several areas after a round of violent battles, and then tightened its control over the western coast of Yemen.
Saudi Arabia responded by launching air strikes in Yemen and providing support to government forces fighting to repel the Ansar Allah group.
Raids on Saada
Media outlets affiliated with the Ansar Allah Houthi group said that warplanes belonging to the forces of the internationally recognized Yemeni government, supported by the Saudi-led coalition, launched raids on the movement’s targets in several governorates in Yemen during the past hours.
These outlets reported that the warplanes, which the group says were launched from Saudi Arabia, launched 11 raids on Wednesday against several targets in the Saada Governorate in northern Yemen, neighboring Saudi Arabia, and communications networks in the Amran Governorate, located south of Saada.
On the other hand, the spokesman for the government forces said that these forces carried out 8 operations that “affected reinforcements, weapons, and military equipment” for the group, as well as artillery batteries and “a mobile air defense system developed by experts in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard” in the city of Mokha, he said.
In Taiz, overlooking the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the fronts there witnessed confrontations, artillery shelling, and air strikes targeting sites and gatherings of the Ansar Allah group, amid violent confrontations taking place there, according to government forces.
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On another level, the internationally recognized Yemeni government warned, in a letter to the UN Security Council and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, of a threat it described as serious to the safety and security of international civil aviation over the southern Red Sea, as a result of the Ansar Allah group’s use of weapons that it said were of Iranian origin, launched from areas under its control in Hodeidah Governorate towards international air routes.
In the letter, the government called for "urgent international action to confront this threat and enforce the arms embargo imposed on the movement," explaining that these Iranian weapons had been modified inside Yemeni territory with the participation of experts from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and were transformed into missiles capable of remaining in the air for up to 25 minutes.
The letter said that these weapons use “thermal tracking systems that track heat sources without distinguishing between military and civilian targets,” adding that launching them near international air routes constitutes “a direct and serious threat to civilian aircraft and their passengers, including United Nations and humanitarian flights operating in Yemen and the region.”
