Aug 14 (Reuters) – Yemen’s internationally recognised government said Iran-aligned Houthis fired six ballistic missiles at the Red Sea port of Mocha on Friday, killing at least four civilians.
The escalation in hostilities between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed government has come amid heightened regional tensions from the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. The Houthis have emerged as a key front in that war, raising the prospect of a return to large-scale conflict in Yemen.
The Yemeni armed forces aligned with the government said in a statement that the Houthi attack on Mocha targeted a civilian facility and economic and maritime installations, killing one port security guard. Two sailors were also missing and eight civilians were wounded, the armed forces said.
A military source told Saba News Agency earlier on Friday the Houthis hit Mocha with six missiles, resulting in the death of four civilians and the burning of several fishing boats.
The Houthis said they used ballistic missiles to attack what they described as a military build-up of weapons and warships belonging to Saudi-backed forces and “mercenaries” in Mocha, destroying boats and weapons.
Separately, the Houthi-run SABA news agency cited a military source as saying the group had also targeted a Saudi Aramco facility in the Saudi city of Najran with a drone.
The source said the Najran attack was a response to what it described as Saudi military aircraft entering airspace over the northeastern part of Yemen’s Saada governorate. The report did not identify the precise target or say whether it had been hit.
There was no immediate confirmation from Saudi authorities or Aramco of a strike on Najran.
Yemen has been periodically engulfed by conflict since the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa in 2014, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention the following year. Until July this year, major fighting had largely subsided under a U.N.-brokered truce in 2022, but efforts to secure a lasting political settlement have stalled.
(Reporting by Enas Alashray, Ahmed Tolba and Mohammed Ghobari; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani, Alison Williams and Tom Hogue)
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