Saudi Arabia just accused Iran of running the Houthi war
3 hours ago · 16 October 2026Share
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks at a press conference with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on October 22, 2017. File photo. U.S. Department of State from United States · Public domain
Saudi Arabia just put a name to the blame.
Rayed Krimly is the kingdom's deputy minister for public diplomacy. He got on a video call with reporters earlier today and said it straight out: Iran arms the Houthis. Iran trains the Houthis. Iran backs the Houthis.
Krimly says quote "continues to arm, train and support the Houthi militia".
So this isn't a leak. It isn't an unnamed official. It's a named Saudi minister, on the record, saying it on camera.
He didn't stop at the general accusation. He went further on the timing too.
Krimly says the latest Houthi escalation is, in his words, encouraged by Iran.
Read that again. Riyadh isn't just saying Iran arms the Houthis in general. It's saying Iran is behind this exact wave of attacks, right now.
And the attacks have been brutal.
The Saudi-led coalition says the Houthis have hit Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport 20 times this month. Twenty times. The coalition says those strikes killed 17 people and wounded 333.
A separate strike on Abha airport, in the southwest, killed three people and wounded 28, the coalition says.
The worst single hit came five days ago. A missile hit Riyadh's airport and killed 12 to 13 people. Close to 300 more were wounded. It's the deadliest attack on Saudi Arabia in more than a decade.
The airport has been shut ever since. Saudi authorities say it stays closed at least until this weekend.
So what does Saudi Arabia want from Iran? Krimly says the two countries still talk directly. But he says Tehran isn't ready to give anything up.
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The Ministry of Interior building in Saudi Arabia. File photo. Jon Rawlinson · CC BY 2.0
He says Saudi Arabia asked the Houthis to meet in Muscat, Oman, a few weeks ago. The Houthis said no.
Krimly also pointed further out. He says China and Russia are believed to be helping too, including with intelligence. But he gave almost no detail on that.
Now here's Iran's side.
Iran hasn't replied to Krimly's statement directly. But its foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, spoke earlier today too. He called Saudi Arabia's blockade on the Houthis unjust and illegal.
A few days ago, Araghchi offered to help broker talks between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis. He said a military approach would only make things worse.
So one country is positioning itself as the peacemaker in public. The other is accusing it of running the war behind the scenes.
This didn't start this month, either. Yemen's civil war came back in July, after a truce that had held for years finally collapsed. Last month the Houthis launched an offensive and seized new territory, including land along the Red Sea coast near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. That's one of the busiest shipping routes on the planet.
And this whole fight sits inside a much bigger one. The United States and Israel have been bombing Iran since late February. Donald Trump said earlier today he's reconsidering America's role in Yemen. He's weighing whether to hit Iran again directly.
The pressure isn't only military, either. A summit between the European Union and Gulf countries, planned for Riyadh later this month, has just been postponed.
Krimly says Saudi Arabia is staying close to its Gulf Cooperation Council partners too, including the UAE. He pointed to the defence pact Saudi Arabia recently signed with Pakistan and Turkey. But he gave no new detail on what either country would actually do.
And the Houthis aren't sitting still while all this plays out. People close to the Yemeni government told the news agency AFP that the Houthis fired missiles earlier today at the Al-Maashiq presidential palace in Aden. That's the seat of Yemen's internationally recognised government.
So what don't we know? We don't know what evidence, if any, Saudi Arabia will actually put forward to back up the arms and training claim. And we don't know how Iran will respond to Krimly's statement specifically, rather than just to the war in general.
Saudi Arabia and Iran restored diplomatic relations back in 2023, in a deal China brokered, ending a seven-year rift. Three years on, one side is accusing the other of running a war through a militia. And both sides still say they're talking.
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