Saudi Arabia and Houthis exchange fire as US attacks tanker in Hormuz Strait

What the report says

BBC World News reported that Saudi Arabia struck Houthi targets in Yemen’s Red Sea port city of Hodeida and on nearby Kamaran island on Friday, after the Iran-backed group declared a maritime blockade and attacked Saudi vessels. Saudi authorities later sent emergency alerts in Jizan province, while Houthi-linked Ansarollah media claimed a missile attack had started fires in the Saudi city of Jizan early Saturday.

In a separate maritime incident, the US military said Friday that it fired on and disabled a tanker in the Gulf of Oman that it said was trying to avoid an American blockade on Iranian ports. A US Central Command spokesman told AFP the ship had ignored repeated warnings and had previously tried to run the blockade several times; he said US forces disabled it by firing into its engine room and that it was no longer heading to Iran.

The BBC also reported wider diplomatic and military activity around the Strait of Hormuz. Oman’s state-linked involvement was highlighted by an Omani delegation arriving in Tehran for talks, while the US and UK are expected to convene a London conference next week on the strait. President Donald Trump said negotiations with Iran were continuing but also warned that US forces were “locked and loaded.”

The developments matter because they combine two critical shipping chokepoints: the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea/Bab el-Mandeb route. The BBC said concerns over Houthi threats had helped lift crude oil above $100 a barrel earlier in the week, though prices later fell after two Chinese-chartered supertankers passed through Bab el-Mandeb.