Dubai, UAE — Yemen’s Houthi movement said it launched a missile attack on the Saudi Red Sea city of Jizan on Saturday, opening a new front in the regional conflict as U.S. President Donald Trump said he had yet to decide whether to order broader military strikes on Iran.
The Houthis said on Telegram that a “Yemeni missile strike” had sparked fires in Jizan. Saudi authorities did not immediately confirm the claim, although the kingdom’s civil defence agency issued alerts for residents in Jizan and Yanbu before later saying the danger had passed.
The attack followed Saudi-led coalition strikes on Houthi military targets in Yemen on Friday. The coalition said it had destroyed sites threatening commercial shipping in the Red Sea after the Iran-aligned group announced a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and claimed attacks on Saudi vessels earlier this week.
A Yemeni security source told AFP that a naval base in Hodeidah and a military camp on Kamaran Island were among the targets hit by Saudi forces.
The latest escalation comes as the United States paused its daily announcements of strikes on Iran after 13 consecutive nights of attacks. Speaking at the White House, Trump said he had not decided whether to launch a broader military operation against Iran, saying Washington was continuing talks with Tehran.
“Look, we’re talking to them right now,” Trump told reporters, adding that Iran was becoming “more and more serious” in negotiations.
Trump said Iran faced a choice between reaching an agreement with Washington or confronting “a much higher level” of military action, while reiterating that preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon remained his red line.
The conflict has widened beyond Iran, with Tehran and its allies targeting U.S. military assets and shipping routes across the region. Iran has imposed a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, while its military said on Friday it had carried out attacks on U.S. military assets in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait.
In Bahrain, authorities said air raid sirens sounded again early on Saturday and urged residents to take shelter.
On the diplomatic front, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi in Kyrgyzstan and called for renewed negotiations and implementation of a memorandum of understanding aimed at easing tensions in the Gulf, according to China’s Xinhua news agency.
