Iran denies Saudi accusation of involvement in Houthi attacks

Iran on Friday denied having anything to do with attacks by Yemen's Houthis, a day after Saudi Arabia accused it of having encouraged the group's recent escalation against the kingdom.

Since Yemen's civil war flared back to life in July, the pro-Iran Houthis have repeatedly struck Saudi targets including Red Sea tankers, oil facilities and Riyadh's international airport, where 13 people were killed in a single attack last week.

A Saudi-led military coalition has supported Yemen's internationally recognised government for more than a decade, and reported on Friday having intercepted more missiles and drones as the kingdom comes under sustained attack from the Houthis.

A day earlier, a Saudi foreign ministry official said Iran had "encouraged" the escalation, which Tehran denied.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran rejects any claim that Iran has played a role in Yemeni (Houthi) operations," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in a statement.

"Yemen's armed forces act according to their own interests and assessments, and such claims are not credible to those familiar with relations between Iran and its friends. Nevertheless, Iran does not consider an escalation of tensions to be in the interests of any party," he added.

The Saudi official, deputy minister for public diplomacy Dr Rayed Krimly, had said the Houthis rejected an offer to meet in Oman at the outset of the latest round of hostilities.

Baqaei however reiterated an offer to mediate between the two sides, saying Tehran "has always been ready to use its good offices to help end the hostilities".

On Friday, a spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition said it had "intercepted and destroyed three drones in the southern area and Riyadh... and two cruise missiles over the Red Sea".

He added that "in the past hours, we intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile over Yanbu", a city home to the terminus of a major oil pipeline on the Red Sea coast.

The Houthi attacks have proliferated since the group launched a lightning offensive in Yemen in September, seizing strategic government-held territory along the Red Sea coast overlooking a major chokepoint for global shipping.

The pressure on Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, comes as global energy markets were already rattled by Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz at the outset of the wider Middle East war in February.

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Airport struck

Yemeni government forces have launched a counteroffensive with Saudi air support to retake areas seized by the Houthis, but have so far failed to reverse their gains.

On Friday, the local security office in Aden, the government's interim capital, said two missiles landed within the perimeter of the city's airport, "in the second incident of its kind in less than a week", adding that no one was killed.

The Houthis, in a statement attributed to a military source, said the attack targeted "the Saudi forces' command headquarters" as well as a weapons depot.

The Yemeni information ministry said in a statement that a Yemenia Airways flight from Aden to Cairo narrowly missed being struck.

It was "preparing for takeoff at the very moment when the terrorist Houthi militia targeted the airport with two missiles that landed approximately 500 metres from the aircraft and about 100 metres from the centre of the runway," a statement said.

"What occurred was not merely an assault on a civilian airport, but a direct threat to the lives of passengers and flight crews, to aviation safety, and a grave violation of international laws and norms."

The day before, the group launched a deadly missile attack on the presidential palace in Aden, killing five people and wounding 16 others, according to the health minister.

Yemeni Prime Minister Shaya al-Zindani denounced the "cowardly" act on X, calling it a "continuation of (the Houthis') criminal pattern".

A government minister said on condition of anonymity that the Houthis hit command centres for Yemeni and Saudi coalition forces housed at the palace complex.

Media affiliated with the Houthis said the attack had targeted "the headquarters of military operations, led by Saudi officers, at the Al-Maashiq Palace in Aden".