Allies unite behind Saudi Arabia as Houthis step up attacks

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan will hold an urgent, high-level meeting under a joint defence pact to discuss ways to support the kingdom amid attacks by Yemen's Houthis, while Saudi's top religious authority told troops to be ready to lay down their lives to fight their Iran-aligned enemy.

The Houthis have launched strikes on the Saudi-backed government in Yemen and repeatedly fired into Saudi Arabia, disrupting oil flows from the world's largest energy exporter, as part of a wider Middle East war that began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran in February.

The Houthis said they had fired dozens of missiles and drones at Saudi targets yesterday (24 September), while authorities in Saudi Arabia said they had intercepted six ballistic missiles fired by Houthi fighters.

Saudi Arabia earlier had issued emergency alerts for areas including the holy city of Mecca, Jeddah and Yanbu, the main Saudi Red Sea oil port.

Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti, the kingdom's top religious authority, called on soldiers to be ready to lay down their lives to fight the Houthis until the group is ousted from power, according to a statement posted by the Saudi state news agency late on Thursday.

Amid the fighting, the Saudi, Pakistani and Turkish foreign ministers met within the framework of the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, according to a Saudi foreign ministry statement.

They condemned the attacks targeting Mecca and other civilian sites while affirming Saudi Arabia's right to defend itself, the statement said.

"The ministers also discussed arrangements for holding an urgent meeting of the chiefs of staff of the three countries to discuss ways to support Saudi Arabia under the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, which stipulates that an attack against any one of the parties constitutes an attack against all parties," the statement said.

The meeting was announced shortly after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian sought to distance Iran from the Houthis in an American television interview on Thursday.

"The Houthis are responsible for their own actions," Pezeshkian told the Fox News program "Special Report with Bret Baier" a day after he appeared before the UN General Assembly in New York.

Diplomacy attempts

The Pezeshkian interview and speech took place amid a pause in fighting between the US and Iran and a brief attempt at diplomacy in New York, with Qatar serving as intermediary between the warring parties.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told reporters on Thursday that Tehran had conveyed a proposal to the United States via intermediaries under which the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened if Tehran's conditions were met.

Under Iran's proposal, hostilities would end on all fronts, including Lebanon, within seven days. The United States would lift its blockade on Iranian ports, release Iran's frozen funds and waive its oil sanctions, he said. "The Strait of Hormuz will be reopened on the last day," Araqchi said, adding that talks with the United States on other issues, including Iran's nuclear issue, would then start.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday that Tehran was reviewing Washington's response to its peace proposals.

Oil prices fell on Friday as markets weighed the possibility of a truce, even as the number of ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz dropped to nine on Thursday, half the 10-day average.

The war, which US President Donald Trump launched alongside Israel in February, has killed thousands of people and disrupted global energy supplies.

While the US and Iran have largely stood down from direct combat, Iranian allies are engaged in the region with Hezbollah confronting Israel in Lebanon and the Houthis advancing in Yemen.

Iran and its allies have significantly pressured oil exports from Saudi Arabia, a US ally. The Houthis have disrupted ship traffic at the mouth of the Red Sea, while Iran has effectively limited tanker traffic at the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for 20% of the world's oil exports before the start of the war. An attack by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq also temporarily knocked Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline out of service.

Security experts have debated exactly how much Iran directly influences the Houthis, a Shi'ite Islamist movement that evolved from a local insurgency into a powerful armed group controlling much of northern Yemen.

However, Yemeni government, Iranian and regional sources have said the Houthis' advance down Yemen's Red Sea coast was carried out with direct guidance from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

With the US-Israeli war against Iran largely stalemated for months on the battlefield, Washington has announced a shift in tactics to extend the reach of its financial sanctions by targeting companies from third countries that do business with Iranian firms, a practice known as "secondary sanctions".

Iranian airlines were barred from neighbouring countries including the UAE and Oman on Thursday in response to new US sanctions, the first big impact of a shift in US policy to target companies in third countries that do business with Iran.

A flight ban, if sustained, could deepen Iran's isolation and worsen an economic crisis in the country, which is already facing a US blockade of its ports at sea.

"We are living in an open-air prison," a retired teacher in Tehran told Reuters by text message on condition her name not be used.