What to know after a week of Houthi attacks that threaten Saudi oil and have rattled world markets

CAIRO (AP) — It’s been a week since Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels stormed down the Red Sea coast, extending their reach to a key maritime chokepoint and threatening Saudi Arabia’s oil exports. The Houthis’ biggest land grab in years reignited Yemen’s 12-year civil war and pushed up global fuel prices. It also gave Iran another potential source of leverage as the United States has started to loosen Tehran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz , on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula. The Houthis are also firing at Saudi oil facilities and tankers. An attack on Saudi Arabia’s east-west pipeline , blamed on Iran-backed militias in Iraq, added to an unfolding nightmare for the kingdom and rattled world markets.

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Scoop News DeskCairo, District of Columbia · Published Thursday, September 17, 2026 at 6:56 PM UTCUpdated Friday, September 18, 2026 at 1:03 AM UTC

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But they might “extend the criteria according to which vessels are assessed to be ‘Saudi-linked’ to increase pressure on both Saudi and the global economy.” Regional mediators have sprung into action, but a diplomatic agreement appears unlikely without some kind of breakthrough in the wider Iran war. Saudi Arabia said Thursday that debris from an intercepted Houthi drone killed one person and wounded two others in the kingdom. The Houthis want Saudi Arabia to lift a long-running blockade on the territory they control. “It is Saudi Arabia that closed the Bab el-Mandeb strait to shipping traffic to and from Yemen and imposed an unjust blockade on the country,” Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthis’ political bureau, told The Associated Press.