Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis said on Monday they had attacked Saudi Arabia's East-West crude oil pumping stations and Riyadh airport, as rising hostilities choke oil supplies and threaten to erupt into a larger regional conflict.
The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said earlier it had destroyed two ballistic missile launchers in the capital Sanaa, including one used to fire a missile towards Riyadh that the coalition said it had intercepted. There was no immediate Saudi confirmation of the Houthi attacks.
The Houthis have been firing ballistic missiles and drones at Saudi airports, ports and oil installations, turning United States ally Saudi Arabia into a pressure point in the wider war.
Riyadh airport hit again
The Houthis also said they had struck Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport, which resumed operations at two terminals on Sunday after an attack claimed by the group earlier this month killed 13 people, the deadliest in the kingdom in more than a decade.
The claim underlined how exposed the Saudi capital has become. Air defences have intercepted missiles aimed at Riyadh before, but the Houthis keep coming back — and each strike forces airlines, airports and oil buyers to recalculate the risk of doing business in the Gulf.
The pipeline that keeps oil moving
The attacks also targeted the artery that matters most to world oil markets. Saudi Arabia temporarily shut down its 1,200-km (746-mile) East-West pipeline in September as a precaution after a drone attack that Riyadh and Baghdad said originated in Iraq. The pipeline has served as a key route for Middle East oil exports while the Strait of Hormuz has been largely shut by the war.
The Houthis also said on Saturday they had targeted the East-West pipeline, crude oil pumping stations, an Aramco facility in Yanbu and the Rabigh refinery. There was no Saudi confirmation of those claims either.
Washington on alert as Tehran talks
The escalation comes as the United States government has put employees in the Middle East on heightened alert and moved to reduce personnel levels at embassies and consulates because intelligence shows Iran is in the advanced stage of planning attacks against United States citizens, United States officials told the New York Times on Friday. The United States Director of National Intelligence, Jay Clayton, raised alarms to United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a memo obtained by Axios.
Iranian Ambassador to Pakistan Reza Amiri Moghadam said on Saturday that Iran remains open to talks with the United States under a Pakistan-brokered interim deal reached in June to end the conflict. Reza Amiri Moghadam said Iran recently conveyed through Pakistan that it was prepared to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the United States lifted its naval blockade, and accused President Donald Trump of rejecting the proposal by insisting the blockade would continue.
Top officials from the Mecca Pact countries Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan are set to meet Iranian officials in Tehran on Monday to discuss regional coordination, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The planned talks would be the first high-level contact between Iran and all members of the three-nation bloc since Saudi Arabia came under escalating attacks from Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis.
Sources: Reuters, 26 Oct 2026 (Yomna Ehab, Eman Abouhassira); Just Security Early Edition, 26 Oct 2026; AP, 26 Oct 2026 (Munir Ahmed); New York Times, 23 Oct 2026.