RIYADH — The Saudi-led Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen carried out a surgical operation early on Sunday to neutralise critical resources used by the Houthi movement, the coalition's official spokesperson, Major General Turki Al Maliki, said in a statement carried by Qatar News Agency (QNA) on Sunday. Al Maliki said the Houthis are waging what he called a deliberate and systematic campaign of attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and are exploiting vital resources to bolster their military capabilities, particularly ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
The joint forces' operation, he said, was aimed at the resources the Houthis use to sustain those attacks and to imperil the security of Saudi Arabia and Yemen, as well as maritime navigation routes in the southern Red Sea. Al Maliki said the joint forces command would continue taking the operational measures it deems essential to deter the Houthis and cripple their use of critical resources for military purposes. Arab News reported the same announcement on Sunday, saying the operation took place on Sunday morning and targeted resources used to support attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Source: QNA via Fana News, Nov 1
What the coalition did not say
The coalition did not specify where Sunday's operation struck, what weapons were used, what was destroyed or whether anyone was killed or injured, Europa Press reported via Demócrata. That contrasts with its operation announced on October 26, when the coalition gave a detailed tally — five tunnels used to store ballistic missiles, four launchers and a missile storage facility destroyed — in strikes this site reported at the time. The coalition warned that the Houthis would bear the consequences if their hostile behaviour continued.
Houthi media report strikes in Hodeidah the same morning
Houthi-affiliated outlets reported separate strikes in Hodeidah governorate on the Red Sea coast on Sunday. The Yemen Press Agency, citing a security source, said at least three civilians were injured in two Saudi air strikes on an oil company facility in Bajil district on Sunday — a report also carried in Middle East Eye's Sunday morning update, which attributed it to the Houthi-run Al-Masirah channel. This site mentioned the Bajil strikes earlier on Sunday in its report on Yemeni government forces recapturing strategic heights east of al-Hazm in al-Jawf.
The Associated Press reported, via Demócrata, that Al-Masirah also reported two air strikes on the University of Hodeidah, saying the Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia for hitting the university's Faculty of Medicine. The Houthi government's education ministry condemned what it called an attack on an academic institution that trains medical personnel, and had not specified whether there were casualties. It is not clear whether the Hodeidah strikes formed part of the operation the coalition announced, and neither the Bajil injuries nor the university strikes have been independently verified. Awaaz Punjab presents both as the Houthi side's reported account, not as established fact.
A Houthi military source, cited by the Saba news agency and reported by Demócrata, warned in parallel that several facilities of the Saudi oil company Aramco were within the group's range and that investing in them was risky, and said international airlines should avoid Saudi airspace except for flights to, or in transit through, the Mecca and Medina areas. The coalition statement did not respond to that warning.
Sunday's operation is the latest exchange in a renewed and intensifying bombing campaign between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, who are once again in open war with Yemen's internationally recognised government in Aden, which Riyadh backs. On Saturday the coalition said Saudi air defences had downed three drones over Riyadh, the oil-rich Eastern Region and the south — a claim this site reported — and at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain on Sunday, Saudi Arabia's Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Vice Admiral Fahd al-Ghufaili, said threats to maritime waterways require an effective collective response and that protecting international straits is a shared global responsibility, because the southern Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb routes the coalition says it is defending carry a large share of world trade.
The operation itself is established only by the coalition's own statement, carried by QNA and Arab News; the coalition gave no targets or results. The Bajil and Hodeidah University strike reports come from Houthi-affiliated media (Al-Masirah, Yemen Press Agency) and AP's summary of them, and are attributed as such throughout. No independent source had confirmed the Hodeidah strikes or the injury figure at the time of publication.