Houthis claim a strike on King Khalid Air Base as the East-West pipeline stays shut

Yemen's Houthis said on 14 September they fired dozens of ballistic missiles and drones at King Khalid Air Base in Khamis Mushait, in southwestern Saudi Arabia, hitting hangars, radars, runways and ammunition stores. The claim, carried by Houthi-run al-Masirah television and attributed to military spokesman Yahya Sarea, was presented as a reply to more than 300 Saudi air raids on Yemen in the previous five days.

Saudi authorities issued emergency alerts in Khamis Mushait and three other southern areas. The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said 13 civilians were wounded in the Houthi attacks. Riyadh did not immediately confirm the scale of damage at the base. Later Houthi missile fire in western Yemen killed eight troops from forces loyal to the Aden-based government, two military sources told AFP.

The strike sits on top of a wider shift along the Red Sea. On 11 September Saudi Arabia shut the East-West pipeline after drones that Riyadh said came from Iraq hit pump stations. The 1,200-kilometre line, built in the 1980s to move crude from the Gulf to the Red Sea and bypass the Strait of Hormuz, is the kingdom's main alternative export route while the strait is largely blocked. The energy ministry called the shutdown a precaution. Officials later said the line would stay mostly out of service for weeks. Traders told Reuters a long outage could remove as much as 4 percent of global oil supply while Hormuz remains constrained.

In the same week the Houthis seized Mocha and then Mayun Island, also known as Perim, at the mouth of the Bab el-Mandeb. That puts a force aligned with Iran on both the Red Sea coast of Yemen and the island that sits in the shipping lane between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Officials with Yemen's internationally recognised government said the group now holds almost the entire western coast.

Iran's foreign ministry said the Houthis act independently. Donald Trump said Iran wants a deal and signalled he is open to talks. Gulf Arab states postponed planned conversations with Tehran. Brent crude rose more than 2 percent on Monday to above $107 a barrel. The US retail diesel price passed $6.23 a gallon, a record in the figures cited by Dawn.

King Khalid Air Base is the launch point Sarea named for Saudi F-15 and Typhoon sorties into Yemen. Hitting it is a bid to raise the cost of that air campaign. The pipeline shutdown is a separate, larger fact for oil markets. Saudi Arabia built the line precisely so that a crisis at Hormuz would not cut its exports. With the line idle and the strait squeezed, that hedge is not working.

The Houthi offensive that began on 3 September recaptured ground in Hodeidah and Taiz provinces. Mocha fell before the push south to Bab el-Mandeb. Saudi and Yemeni aircraft hit the Mocha airport after the seizure, Houthi media said, without a confirmed casualty count. The Saudi Foreign Ministry, speaking about the pipeline attack rather than Monday's base claim, said it would not retaliate immediately so that Baghdad could act against the drones Riyadh attributed to Iraqi territory.

The Houthis threatened larger attacks inside the kingdom if Saudi raids continue. Riyadh and the Aden government have increased bombardment around Mocha. Neither side has published a verified battle-damage assessment of the Monday barrage. What is verified is the combination of an air-base claim, a closed pipeline, an island seizure and a jump in crude and diesel prices in the same week.

Energy desks will watch two clocks. One is the repair schedule on the East-West line. The other is whether Mayun Island stays in Houthi hands long enough to change insurance and routing for ships already avoiding the Red Sea. Those two facts, more than the unverified hangar damage at Khamis Mushait, will decide how long this week stays in the oil price.