Saudi-led coalition says it destroyed 136 Houthi military targets in Yemen

Coalition strikes on Houthi targets

On Saturday, 10 October, the Saudi-led military coalition said it had destroyed more than 100 military targets in an operation against the Houthis, the Iran-backed militia in Yemen. Its spokesman Turki al-Maliki gave the count as 136 targets in areas controlled by the Houthis and posted the statement on X. The coalition said its aim is to dismantle and destroy the Houthi ballistic missile network and to provide air support around the clock to Yemen's armed forces. Al-Masirah, a Houthi-affiliated television channel, reported Saudi missile attacks on areas of Saada province in northwest Yemen. The 136 figure is the coalition's own count, and the articles contain no independent confirmation of it.

In the statement, al-Maliki said:

We are carrying out a large-scale operation directed against the personnel and capabilities of the terrorist Houthi militia.

Fighting inside Yemen

The Houthis have controlled large parts of Yemen for years, including the capital Sanaa. Recently they took much of the Red Sea coast in a lightning offensive, including areas on the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait, which links Asia and Europe via the Suez Canal. Sources differ on when the current escalation began. Le Soir reports that hostilities intensified in September, Deutsche Welle says the conflict reignited in July, and ORF reports it re-escalated after the Iran war began seven months earlier. On Monday, government forces launched an operation called Dawn of Yemen with combat aircraft support from Riyadh. Le Soir and Deutsche Welle both report more than 400 deaths since that launch. A government military source said on Friday that a large-scale operation was under way to retake the Bab el-Mandeb strait from the Iran-backed fighters.

Attacks on Saudi Arabia

Houthi drones and missiles have hit transport hubs, oil facilities and other civilian targets in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter. The Wall Street Journal reports that Houthi missile attacks on Saudi airports are disrupting air travel and threatening the kingdom's tourism and foreign investment goals. Deutsche Welle reports that six people have died this week in bombings the Houthis claimed against Saudi airports. The Wall Street Journal describes the campaign as an effort to cut the kingdom off from the rest of the world. Fighting in Yemen continues in parallel with the strikes in Saudi Arabia, according to the same reports.

Timeline of the week

The sequence of announcements ran from the government operation on Monday to the coalition statement on Saturday, as shown below.

In a second post, al-Maliki wrote:

We destroyed 136 military targets in areas controlled by the terrorist Houthi militia.

The coalition's Saturday statement followed the Friday report from the government military source about the Bab el-Mandeb operation, and it framed the strikes as directed against the militia's personnel and capabilities.