Houthis claim missile strike on Saudi Arabia's Abha Airport

The claim has not been confirmed by Saudi officials, and follows a run of unverified strikes since mid-September

Yemen's Houthis say they struck Abha Airport in Saudi Arabia with missiles. Saudi Arabia has not verified the attack.

The claim follows a pattern stretching back to mid-September, in which the Houthis have reported strikes on Saudi targets that Saudi officials have not confirmed. On Monday, the group claimed three separate operations inside Saudi Arabia, none of them corroborated by officials or witnesses. A Houthi spokesperson also claimed a missile strike on a Saudi camp in Jizan on Monday, which Saudi officials have not confirmed, and an explosion was reported in northern Riyadh the same day, a break from weeks of claimed strikes confined to Jazan and Najran provinces. Saudi Arabia itself has reported attacks on airports in those two provinces since mid-September, also unconfirmed.

The claims come as Yemeni government forces, backed by Saudi-led coalition air power, retook the port city of Mocha from the Houthis on Monday and pressed an advance near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, following a separate government offensive announced in Sanaa. That marks the first real reversal of Houthi territorial gains in the area.

Oil markets have largely looked past the claim-and-counterclaim cycle so far. On Monday, an oil exchange-traded fund, USO, pared an early loss to close down 0.83% at $146.15 after a report of an attack on the Saudi east-west pipeline, a claim Saudi officials did not confirm. Without Saudi confirmation or evidence of damage at Abha, the new claim fits that same pattern, one that has so far left Saudi export flows intact even as the Houthis face their first serious military setback on the ground.