{"id":7879,"date":"2026-07-14T17:35:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T17:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/07\/14\/leading-houthi-threatens-siege-on-saudi-arabia-after-yemen-airport-attack\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T17:35:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T17:35:36","slug":"leading-houthi-threatens-siege-on-saudi-arabia-after-yemen-airport-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/07\/14\/leading-houthi-threatens-siege-on-saudi-arabia-after-yemen-airport-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading Houthi threatens \u2018siege\u2019 on Saudi Arabia after Yemen airport attack"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><em>Speaking to Al Jazeera, leading Houthi Mohammed al-Bukhaiti warns of attacks on Saudi Arabia, prompting fears of return to all-out war in Yemen.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div aria-live=\"polite\" aria-atomic=\"true\">\n<p><strong>Sanaa, Yemen \u2013<\/strong> A leading official with Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels, officially known as Ansar Allah, has threatened a \u201csiege\u201d on Saudi Arabia in retaliation for an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/7\/13\/yemen-govt-says-its-forces-attacked-sanaa-airport\">attack on Sanaa International Airport<\/a>. The Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia for the Monday attack, but Yemen\u2019s internationally recognised government has claimed responsibility, saying that it was a measure to prevent an Iranian plane from landing in Yemen\u2019s Houthi-controlled capital.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi political bureau, said that the group would respond to attacks they perceived to be from Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<section>\n<h2>Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n<p><span>list of 3 items<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span>list 1 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/economy\/2026\/7\/14\/how-new-yemen-tensions-could-complicate-the-global-energy-crisis\">How new Yemen tensions could complicate the global energy crisis<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 2 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/video\/newsfeed\/2026\/7\/14\/whats-behind-the-sanaa-airport-attack-and-latest-yemen-tensions\">What\u2019s behind the Sanaa Airport attack and latest Yemen tensions?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 3 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/7\/14\/iran-lawmakers-present-hormuz-management-bill-as-us-war-heats-up\">Iran lawmakers present Hormuz management bill as US war heats up<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n<p>\u201cTheir willingness to attack Sanaa Airport to prevent flights from arriving or departing gives Yemen the right to strike their airports and to impose on them a siege just as they have done to us,\u201d al-Bukhaiti said.<\/p>\n<p>Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree said that Monday\u2019s attack ended the \u201cde-escalation phase\u201d of Yemen\u2019s war, which has been ongoing since a Houthi takeover of Sanaa in 2014. This week\u2019s violence follows <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/7\/5\/at-least-15-yemeni-government-troops-killed-in-hodeidah-fighting\">clashes in Hodeidah<\/a> between Houthi and government forces earlier in July, and threatens to end four years of relative calm since a temporary truce was agreed four years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The strikes, which al-Bukhaiti said \u201cwill not pass without response and punishment\u201d, targeted Sanaa Airport\u2019s runway as an Iranian plane carrying a Houthi delegation from Tehran was approaching. The delegation had been attending the funeral of Iran\u2019s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran on February 28.<\/p>\n<p>Al-Bukhaiti had been among the officials travelling on the Iranian airliner, which was diverted to Hodeidah, a city on Yemen\u2019s Red Sea coast that is also controlled by the pro-Iran Houthis.<\/p>\n<p>His comments followed the Houthis\u2019 own response to the Sanaa Airport attack: a ballistic missile salvo fired at southern Saudi Arabia\u2019s Abha International Airport. The Saudi-led coalition said that it successfully intercepted the missiles.<\/p>\n<p>The Houthis have threatened further action to end the \u201csiege\u201d on Sanaa Airport, and pledged to keep flights between Sanaa and Tehran running. They say they have no issue paralysing Saudi airports in order to achieve that goal.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/7\/3\/yemens-houthis-threaten-saudi-arabia-after-alleged-airspace-intrusion\">A flight between Tehran and Sanaa on July 3<\/a> caused the recent tension, after the Houthis accused Saudi warplanes of attempting to prevent the Iranian plane from landing. The flight was the first publicly announced Iranian flight to land in Sanaa for more than a decade.<\/p>\n<p>The Yemeni government has accused Iran of using flights to Yemen as cover to send equipment to the Houthis. Speaking at the United Nations Security Council on Monday, Yemen\u2019s ambassador to the UN Abdullah al-Saadi said that the plane attempting to land in Sanaa was linked to Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and had \u201cpersonnel, know-how, and military and dual-use equipment\u201d. He added that the Yemeni government had offered to fly the Houthi delegation from Tehran to Sanaa on a Yemeni airline.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"bab-al-mandeb-threat\">Bab al-Mandeb threat<\/h2>\n<p>With the potential for violence to escalate in Yemen, there are now fears that the Houthis will use their control of territory along the Red Sea to close the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/economy\/2026\/7\/14\/how-new-yemen-tensions-could-complicate-the-global-energy-crisis\">Bab al-Mandeb Strait<\/a>, the southern entry point to the vital waterway.<\/p>\n<p>Coupled with continued threats to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz \u2013 on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula \u2013 as a result of the US war with Iran, any attacks on shipping off Yemen\u2019s coast would further rock the global economy.<\/p>\n<p>When asked about the possibility of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait being closed, al-Bukhaiti expressed that all options are on the table for the Houthis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Bab al-Mandeb card is a strategic asset that Yemen has the luxury of utilising,\u201d al-Bukhati said. \u201cWe will use this card against nations that are actively transgressing on us. We will use Bab al-Mandeb in a way that will bring no harm to nations that are not involved in hostilities toward Yemen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Houthis have previously launched attacks on shipping they said were tied to Israel or the United States in the wake of Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza. The Houthi attacks <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/11\/11\/yemens-houthis-appear-to-pull-back-from-red-sea-shipping-attacks\">paralysed shipping<\/a> through the Red Sea, and killed at least nine sailors, with four ships sunk and others seized.<\/p>\n<p>The US, Israel, and the United Kingdom have all previously conducted strikes on Yemen in an attempt to stop the Houthi attacks, which have halted since the October 2025 Gaza ceasefire agreement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking to Al Jazeera, leading Houthi Mohammed al-Bukhaiti warns of attacks on Saudi Arabia, prompting fears of return to all-out war in Yemen. Sanaa, Yemen \u2013 A leading official with Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels, officially known as Ansar Allah, has threatened a \u201csiege\u201d on Saudi Arabia in retaliation for an attack on Sanaa International Airport. The &#8230; <a title=\"Leading Houthi threatens \u2018siege\u2019 on Saudi Arabia after Yemen airport attack\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/07\/14\/leading-houthi-threatens-siege-on-saudi-arabia-after-yemen-airport-attack\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Leading Houthi threatens \u2018siege\u2019 on Saudi Arabia after Yemen airport attack\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}