DOMINANT ANGLE
Buenos Aires is watching the military escalation in Riyadh as a sign of a regional war that is spiraling out of control, between an unprecedented air alert in the Saudi capital and a Houthi territorial advance on the Red Sea.
Dominant angle identified — does not reflect unanimity of this country’s media
KEY POINTS
- 01
An air alert targeted Riyadh and several Saudi regions on the night of September 18-19, a first since the intensification of the conflict with the Houthists, with an explosion at an Aramco depot near King Khalid Airport, according to Clarín.
- 02
The Houthists control the entire Yemeni coastline of the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, and have been imposing a maritime blockade on Saudi ships since July; Saudi exports via this strait have been declining since then, according to Kpler.
- 03
Houthi leader Mahdi al-Mashat denied on Thursday to Iranian agency IRNA any attack on Mecca, describing the Saudi accusation as a "desperate attempt to provoke Islamic nations".
ANALYSIS
Buenos Aires, September 19, 2026. For the first time since the intensification of the Houthi offensive, an air alert sounded in the night from Friday to Saturday in Riyadh and several other regions of Saudi Arabia, reports Clarín. A storage facility of the public oil giant Aramco, near King Khalid International Airport, exploded on Saturday, causing black smoke and flames visible from the capital. The Saudi Civil Defense sent messages asking residents to stay at home: "The area is under a hostile air threat," indicated the SMS received just before 3 am. A 27-year-old resident of the north of the city confided to AFP: "I heard the alarm, then my windows shook. It was really terrifying, I didn't expect it." Another resident of the city center described an anxious wait, as the all-clear did not arrive immediately like in previous times.
Riyadh did not specify the origin of the threat. The episode comes after a week of tensions: on Wednesday, the kingdom accused the Houthi rebels, supported by Iran, of having targeted Mecca with an intercepted drone, a "cowardly terrorist attack" according to Riyadh. The head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat, denied it on Thursday to the Iranian agency IRNA, denouncing a "desperate attempt to provoke the Islamic nations," while also claiming other strikes against Saudi military and oil installations. The rebels claim to have suffered 40 Saudi airstrikes in 24 hours.
The conflict, which began in 2014, has worsened since the breakdown of the 2022 truce in July: the Houthi rebels have taken control of the entire Yemeni coast of the Red Sea, ensuring control of the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait and imposing a maritime blockade on Saudi ships. According to the maritime tracking company Kpler, cited by Clarín, Saudi exports via this strait have declined since July, although five oil tankers passed through it last week. The newspaper emphasizes that these hostilities "further shake a global economy already weakened" by nearly seven months of war between Washington and Iran, in a kingdom that remains the world's largest exporter of crude oil and a strategic ally of the United States in the region.
