UNSC Urges Houthis to End All “Terrorist” Attacks

The latest Houthi drone attack on the southern border of Saudi Arabia constitutes a serious threat to the peace process and regional stability, said the UN Security Council (UNSC) in a statement late Friday.

The SC described the attack as “egregious and escalatory” and urged the Iran-backed Houthi group to “end all terrorist attacks.”

On Monday, September 25, Houthi fighters fired a drone, targeting a location in a Saudi border area, killing three Bahraini soldiers and wounding several others. According to the state-run Bahraini News Agency, the fourth soldier died late Friday. A statement by the Bahraini military identified the fourth death as  1st Lt. Hamad Khalifa al-Kubaisi.

It said, “ [He] succumbed to the injuries he had suffered as a result of the Houthi act of aggression last Monday while performing his sacred patriotic duties defending the southern borders of Saudi Arabia.”

The Bahraini troops are part of the Arab Coalition that launched a military campaign against the Houthis in 2015. 

Throughout this year, the Houthi-Saudi rapprochement began to materialize, especially after a visit by a Saudi delegation to Sanaa in April this year. The thaw between the two sides further improved after the arrival of a Houthi negotiating team in Riyadh this month. However, this Houthi drone attack has been a discouraging development. The SC said, “Any escalation would only exacerbate the suffering of the Yemeni population.”

Informed sources told Sheba Intelligence on September 26, one day after the Houthi drone attack, that the Arab Coalition’s operations room received early warning of possible attacks on the Yemeni-Saudi border. However, it did not take pre-emptive action to foil such an assault. According to the sources, the reason for not taking action is the state of de-escalation in the Yemen war since April 2022 and the subsequent peace negotiations in Muscat, Sanaa, and Riyadh.