Saudi Arabia has accused Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement of attempting to launch a drone attack toward Mecca, declaring the holy city a “red line,” while the Houthis have denied carrying out the attack.

Saudi authorities said the drone was intercepted and destroyed before it entered the airspace over Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. The Houthis denied launching drones toward the city.

The reported incident has drawn condemnation from several countries and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which said any attempt to target the holy sites violates their sanctity.

Saudi-led coalition spokesperson Col. Turki al-Maliki said the incident was the second alleged Houthi attempt to target Mecca, following a ballistic missile launch toward the city in 2017.

The development comes as Saudi Arabia faces renewed security pressures linked to the wider regional conflict. The Houthis have also carried out attacks against Saudi infrastructure and shipping in the Red Sea, according to the report.

Turkey and Pakistan say no Saudi request for military support

Saudi Arabia’s recently announced defense cooperation with Turkey and Pakistan has not been activated in response to the reported incident.

Officials from Turkey and Pakistan told The Associated Press that Riyadh had not requested military assistance. A Turkish official said efforts to establish the alliance’s operational framework still need to be completed.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the reported attack and said Pakistan and Saudi Arabia stand “shoulder to shoulder.”

Houthis claim they shot down Saudi fighter jet

The Houthis later claimed they had shot down an F-15 fighter jet operated by the Saudi-led coalition over Yemen’s central Marib province.

Houthi military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree provided no details on when the incident allegedly occurred. The Associated Press said it could not independently verify the claim.

U.S. officials have indicated that Washington does not currently intend to become directly involved in the conflict. President Donald Trump said the Houthis had indicated they did not want to fight the United States, while Vice President J.D. Vance said Washington remained in contact with both Saudi Arabia and the Houthis.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was visiting China, with discussions expected to include the regional conflict and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Arab states in the Gulf called off a meeting with Iran planned for Monday, while Yemen’s Houthis launched a new attack on Saudi Arabia after fighting that has extended the Middle East war ​to another theatre and further jeopardised global oil supplies.

The Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen said they fired dozens of missiles and drones on Monday at a Saudi military ‌airbase in Khamis Mushait, near the border, hitting aircraft hangars, radar systems, runways and ammunition depots. They described the attack as retaliation for hundreds of Saudi airstrikes on Yemen in recent days, Reuters reported.

Saudi authorities announced brief emergency alerts there and in three other southern cities which have previously come under Houthi fire.

The Houthis launched a lightning advance last week in Yemen, culminating in the seizure of an island in the mouth of the Red Sea on Friday. A separate ​attack that day, which Riyadh blamed on Iran-backed fighters in Iraq, knocked out Saudi Arabia’s east-west pipeline, the main route for Middle East oil bypassing the blockaded Strait of Hormuz.

OIL ​PRICES JUMP

Crude oil prices rose more than 3% on Monday, when the market reopened after the weekend, while the politically sensitive average retail price of diesel ⁠in the United States hit a new all-time high above $6.23 a gallon.

Traders say the closure of the Saudi pipeline could cut off as much as 4% of global oil supply unless it is reopened ​within days. Images from space show sections of the pipeline damaged by blazes. Riyadh has not given a firm estimate for how long it will be shut.

Oman had been due to host a meeting ​on Monday with Iran and Gulf states to discuss negotiations aimed at reopening Hormuz, the world’s most important oil shipping lane, largely closed since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February.

But Oman’s Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi announced overnight that the meeting had been postponed “in the interests of consensus”. Iran said the postponement was at the request of Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, Iran issued a list of 77 ships it said had violated its ​protocols for operating in the Strait of Hormuz. Any ship on the list would face “restrictions on future passages, including fines, detention, or confiscation”, and other ships that assisted them by accepting transfers of ​cargo would be added to the list.

EXPANSION OF WAR TO YEMEN POSES DILEMMA FOR TRUMP

The upsurge of fighting in Yemen poses a dilemma for Washington, which is under pressure to aid its Saudi allies but anxious not ‌to expand ⁠the costly war to a new theatre.

Saudi Arabia has led an Arab coalition battling the Houthis for more than a decade, after the mountain fighters captured Yemen’s capital in 2014. The war there had largely been quiet under a ceasefire for the past few years, but fighting has now resumed, with the Houthis driving back forces from a Saudi-backed government based in the south.

Thousands of Yemenis have fled inland from the coast to escape fighting as the Houthis swept into cities including the historic Red Sea port of Mocha last week.

Aisha Muhammad, an elderly woman burning twigs to heat a kettle in government-held territory ​near Taiz, told Reuters she had left behind ​two daughters and three sons who had ⁠been unable to escape.

“They can’t even go out to the market to get food and drinking water. They are being blocked and shot at, so they are trapped inside their homes,” she said. “They cannot reach us, and we cannot return to them. This is a trial from God.”

On Friday the ​Houthis captured Perim Island, inside the Bab el-Mandeb, the “Gate of Tears” strait, at the mouth of the Red Sea.

U.S. President Donald Trump is under ​pressure to end the war ⁠to relieve the global energy shortage and lower prices that are hurting the fortunes of his Republican Party ahead of mid-term elections in November.

Three sources have told Reuters that Washington has so far rebuffed pleas from Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to intervene in Yemen. Trump confirmed over the weekend that he had spoken to the prince, and said the Houthis had also phoned asking Washington to keep out ⁠of the dispute.

The ​United States bombed the Houthis in 2025 for two months, but Trump called off that campaign after reaching a ceasefire ​with the group, which he said had promised not to attack ships in the Red Sea.

Trump, who attended a golf tournament at one of his resorts in Ireland, said he expected the Iran war to end shortly after the elections in ​November, after which the price of oil would “drop like a rock”.

Commodity vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz fell to a single digit per day at the weekend, preliminary shiptracking ​data showed on Monday, well below a 10-day average of ‌14, Reuters reported.

Over the weekend, four vessels exited the Gulf through the strait, including a Handysize vessel sailing in ballast, a Handy vessel carrying LPG, a Supramax carrying ​fertilizer and a Suezmax laden with crude or condensate.

Ten vessels entered ​the Gulf, including a mini-bulker carrying minor bulk commodities, ⁠a Handymax carrying grain, a Panamax carrying metals and a Supramax carrying ​dry bulk cargo, the data showed.

The figures exclude any vessels that might ​have crossed the strait with their Automatic Identification System transponders turned off to avoid detection.

A vessel was struck by an unknown projectile while transiting the Strait of ​Hormuz, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said early on Sunday.

It ​said the crew’s status, damage assessment and environmental impact were unknown.

Meanwhile, the vital East-West ‌oil ⁠pipeline in Saudi Arabia, which has helped relieve the logjam in the Strait of Hormuz, was temporarily shut down by a drone attack coming from Iraq, Saudi officials said.

Before the Iran war started on February 28, the ​strait typically handled ​about 125 large, ⁠commercial vessels per day, including tankers, gas carriers, bulkers and container vessels, accounting for some 20% of ​the world’s daily crude oil and liquefied natural gas ​supply, read the report.

A U.S. ⁠blockade of Iran-related shipping has halted Iranian crude oil exports since it was reimposed in mid-July.

In the Bab el-Mandeb strait, 24 and 27 commodity ⁠vessels travelled ​through respectively on Saturday and Sunday, tracking ​data showed, compared with an average of around 27 ships over the last 10 days.