SANAA/Riyadh – Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said Wednesday that Saudi-backed forces had launched dozens of airstrikes overnight across four Yemeni provinces, after rebel attacks on Saudi Arabia ignited fires at several oil facilities and wounded dozens of people.
Separately, Iranian state media said that Iranian forces struck several tankers and two US ships in retaliation for U.S. strikes on Iranian ships on Tuesday. The U.S. military denied that American warships were hit.
According to Iranian state media, the country’s forces had struck eight oil tankers and two U.S. vessels in retaliation for U.S. strikes on five Iranian tankers on Tuesday, and that it had also targeted another 10 ships attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
In a social media post, the US Central Command said the claim that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard had struck two U.S. Navy warships was false and that all “attempted attacks failed.”
The government of Iraq said that a Panamanian-flagged oil tanker was struck early Wednesday by an unidentified source off its coast in the northern Persian Gulf. Iraq’s Transport Ministry said that there were no casualties.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center, which reports maritime incidents, said that there were strikes “involving several merchant vessels” in the northern Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The UKMTO said it couldn’t confirm whether there were casualties.
The U.S. Central Command said in a social media post Tuesday that it destroyed five Iranian crude oil tankers after Tehran fired missiles at a U.S. warship twice over two days. The ongoing conflict pushed the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil past $100 on Wednesday.
Houthi spokesman Nasruddin Amer said on X on Wednesday that Saudi-backed forces had launched 32 airstrikes overnight across Yemen’s provinces of Taiz, Hodeida, Jawf and Marib. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. Saudi authorities didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The strikes come a day after Houthi attacks on several oil facilities and utilities in Saudi Arabia wounded 73 people, in a major escalation in the renewed conflict between an important U.S. ally and the Iran-backed rebels in Yemen. They follow weeks of intensifying clashes between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces.Four bodies were recovered Wednesday from a Houthi-run prison hit by an airstrike earlier this week in northern Yemen, the Houthis said, raising the death toll from that strike to 23 people.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry called on the Houthis “to put an end to their aggressive actions immediately.” Last month, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a defense agreement that would treat an attack on one as an attack on all three.
Pakistan’s PM expressed his “unwavering solidarity” with Saudi Arabia, after Houthi drone and missile attacks on civilian and energy facilities in the Kingdom left 73 people injured.
At the same time, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that a three-nation defense pact between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye could become operational in the event of aggression against the Kingdom.
The comments are yet another indication that Islamabad considers the attacks by the Iran-backed Yemeni group capable of triggering obligations under the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement, signed by the three countries last month and stipulating that an armed attack on one member would be treated as an attack on all.
In an interview with a private news channel, Asif warned the Houthis not to exploit the broader US-Iran confrontation to draw Saudi Arabia into the conflict, saying that it would be doing so “at its own peril.”
“Unprovoked aggression or spillover of whatever is happening in Yemen into Saudi Arabia will definitely make this agreement operational,” he said. “No one should have any doubt in this. We are bound by the terms and conditions of this pact. God willing, we will honor them in case there is a need.”
The U.N. atomic watchdog’s board on Wednesday reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council for the first time in 20 years, saying Tehran failed to cooperate in an investigation into uranium traces detected at various undeclared sites.
Twenty-three countries on the IAEA’s board of governors supported the resolution put forward by France, Germany, the U.K. and U.S. It was opposed by China, Niger and Russia.
Since Israel and the U.S. struck Iran’s nuclear sites in June 2025, Iran hasn’t given IAEA inspectors access to the affected sites. Western officials suspect that the uranium traces could provide further evidence that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program until 2003.
Iran says that it’s not pursuing nuclear weapons, and its program is entirely peaceful.
Reza Najafi, Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. in Vienna, rejected the resolution and described it as a “political tool, not a technical document.”
Iran’s Fars news agency said late Wednesday an explosion was heard in the southern areas of the port city of Jask, coming from the sea, adding that no details are available regarding the source or the cause of the explosion.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says the war with the United States can end if Washington stops threatening the Islamic Republic and meets Tehran’s conditions, which include a halt to interference in its nuclear program and an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
“If the enemy wants an end to this situation, it must, while completely stopping the war, refrain from renewed threats, withdraw the Israeli regime’s army from Lebanon, end the blockade of Yemen, release $24 billion in Iran’s frozen assets and refrain from any interference in the country’s nuclear and missile capabilities,” IRGC Spokesman Hossein Mohebi says, according to the Fars news agency.
Israel has repeatedly vowed that it will not accede to Iranian demands to withdraw from the buffer zone the IDF holds in south Lebanon. Israel has demanded that Iran’s terror proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, be disarmed, and has held negotiations with the Lebanese government to that effect.
Saudi Arabia strongly condemned the continued unjustified Iranian attacks against Jordan, reiterating its solidarity with the Kingdom and its people in all measures taken in response to the attacks.
In a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday, Saudi Arabia denounced the Iranian attacks against Jordan in the strongest terms.
The Kingdom described the attacks as a blatant violation of international law and the principles of good-neighborly relations.
Saudi Arabia also stressed the importance of an immediate halt to Iranian attacks targeting Jordan and other countries in the region, and called for serious steps toward achieving security and stability for the region and its peoples.
