Mecca alarm, Red Sea grip: How the Houthis have opened a new front in the war in West Asia

Saudi Arabia accuses the Iran-backed group of targeting Islam's holiest city, which the Houthis deny. Their advance in Yemen threatens a second oil route.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen's Houthis said on Wednesday it had shot down a drone south of Mecca a day earlier, before it could enter the restricted airspace over Islam's holiest city. The coalition said "the security of the Two Holy Mosques and the pilgrims is a red line" and promised deterrent measures against the Iran-backed group.

Yahya Saree, the Houthis' military spokesperson, denied the group had targeted Mecca and called the Saudi reports a set-up for propaganda. Hazem al-Assad, a member of the Houthi politburo, wrote on X that "the claims about targeting Mecca are a worn-out lie that has been used before and no longer fools anyone".

Mecca is about 1,100km from the Yemeni border. The Houthis fired a ballistic missile towards the city in 2017, the coalition's spokesperson, Colonel Turki al-Maliki, said, according to the Associated Press.

Tuesday's alarm in Mecca was the first of the current war, and alerts also sounded over Jeddah, Taif and Al Ula. Riyadh is now fighting an Iran-backed group on its southern border while its main oil export bypass is shut and the Houthis hold the southern entrance to the Red Sea.

The Houthis seized the Yemeni capital Sanaa in 2014, and Saudi Arabia intervened the following year to back the internationally recognised government. A United Nations-brokered truce in 2022 halted the worst fighting without a political settlement.

The group largely stayed out of the first months of the war that began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28. In July, it declared a blockade on Saudi shipping in the Red Sea, which was a response to a Saudi blockade of Yemeni ports, Reuters reported. About 10 days ago the Houthis stepped up near-daily strikes on Saudi energy sites and western towns, injuring more than 80 people, according to Bloomberg.

A lightning offensive last week gave the Houthis effective control of Yemen's entire Red Sea coast, including the port of Mocha and Perim Island in the Bab al-Mandab strait.

Saree said Saudi Arabia had carried out as many as 450 air strikes on Yemen this week. Riyadh has not confirmed the strikes, though officials in the Saudi-backed Yemeni government have acknowledged them. He also claimed that the Houthis shot down a Saudi F-15 over Marib province. Several western European militaries assess that the Saudis and their Yemeni allies are unlikely to retake Mocha, Bloomberg reported. More than 100,000 people have been displaced inside Yemen, according to the UN refugee agency.