Gulf states cancel Iran talks as Houthis continue to target Saudi Arabia

TAIZ, Yemen/DUBAI: Gulf Arab states cancelled a planned meeting with Iran on Monday as Yemen’s Houthis launched a fresh attack on Saudi Arabia, adding another flashpoint to the widening Middle East conflict and raising further concerns over global oil supplies.

The Iran-aligned Houthi group said it had fired dozens of missiles and drones at a Saudi military base in Khamis Mushait, near the kingdom’s border with Yemen. The group claimed the strikes hit aircraft hangars, radar installations, runways and ammunition storage facilities.

The Houthis described the assault as retaliation for what they said were hundreds of Saudi airstrikes on targets in Yemen in recent days.

Saudi authorities issued short-lived emergency alerts in Khamis Mushait and three other southern cities that have previously been targeted by Houthi attacks. The reports came as the conflict continued to spread across the region, adding to uncertainty in energy markets.

The latest escalation follows a rapid Houthi offensive in Yemen last week, which culminated in the group taking control of an island at the entrance to the Red Sea on Friday.

On the same day, Saudi Arabia blamed Iran-backed fighters in Iraq for an attack that disrupted the kingdom’s east-west oil pipeline. The pipeline is a key alternative route for transporting Middle Eastern crude while shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked.

The developments came as oil markets reopened after the weekend, with prices surging amid growing concerns over disruptions to regional energy supplies.

Oil prices jump

Crude oil prices rose more than 3% on Monday, when the market reopened after the weekend, while the politically sensitive average retail price of diesel in the United States hit a new all-time high above $6.23 a gallon.

Traders say the closure of the Saudi pipeline could cut off as much as 4% of global oil supply unless it is reopened within days. Images from space show sections of the pipeline damaged by blazes. Riyadh has not given a firm estimate for how long it will be shut.

Oman had been due to host a meeting on Monday with Iran and Gulf states to discuss negotiations aimed at reopening Hormuz, the world’s most important oil shipping lane, largely closed since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February.

But Oman’s Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi announced overnight that the meeting had been postponed “in the interests of consensus”. Iran said the postponement was at the request of Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, Iran issued a list of 77 ships it said had violated its protocols for operating in the Strait of Hormuz. Any ship on the list would face “restrictions on future passages, including fines, detention, or confiscation”, and other ships that assisted them by accepting transfers of cargo would be added to the list.

Expansion of war to Yemen poses dilemma for Trump

The upsurge of fighting in Yemen poses a dilemma for Washington, which is under pressure to aid its Saudi allies but anxious not to expand the costly war to a new theatre.

Saudi Arabia has led an Arab coalition battling the Houthis for more than a decade, after the mountain fighters captured Yemen’s capital in 2014. The war there had largely been quiet under a ceasefire for the past few years, but fighting has now resumed, with the Houthis driving back forces from a Saudi-backed government based in the south.

Thousands of Yemenis have fled inland from the coast to escape fighting as the Houthis swept into cities including the historic Red Sea port of Mocha last week.

Aisha Muhammad, an elderly woman burning twigs to heat a kettle in government-held territory near Taiz, told Reuters she had left behind two daughters and three sons who had been unable to escape.

“They can’t even go out to the market to get food and drinking water. They are being blocked and shot at, so they are trapped inside their homes,” she said. “They cannot reach us, and we cannot return to them. This is a trial from God.”

On Friday the Houthis captured Perim Island, inside the Bab el-Mandeb, the “Gate of Tears” strait, at the mouth of the Red Sea.

U.S. President Donald Trump is under pressure to end the war to relieve the global energy shortage and lower prices that are hurting the fortunes of his Republican Party ahead of mid-term elections in November.

Three sources have told Reuters that Washington has so far rebuffed pleas from Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to intervene in Yemen. Trump confirmed over the weekend that he had spoken to the prince, and said the Houthis had also phoned asking Washington to keep out of the dispute.

The United States bombed the Houthis in 2025 for two months, but Trump called off that campaign after reaching a ceasefire with the group, which he said had promised not to attack ships in the Red Sea.

Trump, who attended a golf tournament at one of his resorts in Ireland, said he expected the Iran war to end shortly after the elections in November, after which the price of oil would “drop like a rock”.