ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed a missile attack on southern Saudi Arabia early Saturday in retaliation for Saudi airstrikes on Yemen's key port city of Hodeida, marking another escalation in the widening regional conflict.

The Houthis' Ansarollah media said a "Yemeni missile strike" sparked fires in the southern Saudi Red Sea city of Jizan.

Riyadh's civil defense issued brief warnings to residents in Jizan and Yanbu early Saturday.

The attack came after Riyadh struck Houthi military targets in Hodeida on Friday, with rebel media reporting two people wounded. The strikes followed the Houthis' announcement of a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia and attacks on two Saudi ships on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia confirmed one of the attacks in the Red Sea, marking the first strikes carried out as part of the Iran-backed group's recently announced blockade of the Kingdom.

The flare-up marks a new front in the US-Iran war that has engulfed the region and comes alongside Iran's parallel blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Following the Houthi attack on Saudi tankers, US President Donald Trump warned that “if they do this again, the U.S. will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves.”

After years of relative calm under a UN-backed truce in Yemen's decade-long civil war, tensions between Riyadh and the Iran-backed Houthis escalated after a Saudi airstrike on Sana'a International Airport prevented an Iranian aircraft from landing last week.

The Houthis said through Ansarollah media that Saudi strikes on Sana'a International Airport served as “a reminder to those who had forgotten that Saudi Arabia insists on keeping the airport closed,” adding that the Kingdom has imposed “an unjust blockade” on Yemen. 

With their center of power in western Yemen, the Houthis are strategically positioned to exert influence over the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean and has become a critical export route for Saudi oil following Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz during its conflict with the US and Israel.

The Iran-backed movement demonstrated its ability to disrupt maritime traffic beginning in late 2023, when it started targeting allegedly Israeli-linked commercial vessels in response to the Israeli genocide in Gaza.