Houthi Missile Strike Kills 73 Young Recruits at Yemen Army Camp in Deadliest Attack in Months

CAIRO — A Houthi ballistic missile strike on a government military camp in southern Yemen killed 73 people on Monday, every one of them a new army recruit between the ages of 18 and 20, a senior Yemeni government official said Tuesday — making it the deadliest single attack since fighting in the country began escalating three months ago.

The strike hit the al-Alam training camp in the southern province of Shabwa while the recruits were lined up in formation for a training session, Shabwa governor Awad Ibn al-Wazir told The Associated Press. More than 200 other recruits were wounded, and several remained missing a day after the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels fired the missiles.

Videos from the area circulated online and were analysed by The Associated Press, showing many motionless bodies lying on the sandy ground of the camp.

The casualties were drawn from across Shabwa and were being trained to provide security inside the province rather than for frontline combat, the governor said. “This had nothing to do with frontlines,” Ibn al-Wazir said. “They had not attacked anyone or advanced against anything. It was only to protect the security of their province.”

Another government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief the media, said some of the wounded were transferred to hospitals in other provinces in life-threatening condition, and that at least 15 of those killed belonged to a single Yemeni tribe.

A ceasefire that snapped

Monday’s strike is the latest in a surge of fighting that began in July, when forces of the internationally recognised government and the Saudi-led coalition launched airstrikes on Houthi-held Sanaa International Airport, shattering a 2022 ceasefire deal that had largely frozen Yemen’s civil war for years. The attack forms part of a regional escalation that now spans from the Hormuz crisis in the Gulf to the Red Sea shipping lanes.

Riyadh struck the same day

Hours after the death toll was announced, the Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted and destroyed a Houthi ballistic missile fired toward Riyadh. Coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki Al-Maliki announced the interception in a post on X, and the Saudi Civil Defense lifted a security alert in the capital after residents reported hearing explosions.

It was the latest in a string of Houthi missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia this month. Earlier in October, falling debris from an intercepted missile damaged a kindergarten and a medical clinic complex in Riyadh, while attacks on airports killed several people, including a Saudia pilot killed in a strike on the Riyadh airport. The Houthis have also attacked the state oil giant Saudi Aramco, and an attack on the Riyadh airport on October 10 killed 13 people.

Egypt on the brink of entering the war

The escalation has pushed Egypt, the Arab world’s largest military power, toward direct involvement. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has asked parliament for urgent authorisation for the military to help defend Saudi Arabia if the kingdom requests support. “Egypt will provide Saudi Arabia with all necessary and possible forms of support to defend its security and stability, protect its resources, territorial integrity and Islamic holy sites,” the Egyptian presidency said in a statement after a National Defence Council meeting chaired by Sisi.

Egypt’s parliament adjourned its second session on Monday after delaying the vote until October 26, prolonging debate over a mission the opposition says is shrouded in secrecy. The Egyptian Social Democratic Party instructed its lawmakers to abstain, saying parliament had not been given sufficient details about the mission’s “objectives, duration, cost, or the risks to Egyptian troops.” Egypt’s constitution requires a two-thirds parliamentary majority to authorise troops for an overseas combat mission.

Sisi has insisted any Egyptian role would be strictly defensive. “I’m not talking about confronting or attacking anyone... We’re talking only about defence,” he said. The Grand Imam of al-Azhar urged Arab and Muslim leaders to mediate and avert further bloodshed.

Washington says no to troops

The United States has ruled out joining the fight directly. Tom Barrack, the US envoy to Syria and Iraq, told the Global Security Forum in Doha, Qatar, that while he understood that “Saudi Arabia is in a very difficult position,” Washington was not prepared to send troops. “I think the president has been clear that he supports Saudi Arabia, and the backing that they need logistically we’ll supply, but America getting involved in a ground kinetic battle somewhere else seems fruitless,” said Barrack, who is also the US ambassador to Turkey.

The Yemen conflict has become another front in a wider war across the Middle East that began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February — strikes that threatened global energy supplies and sent oil prices soaring.

An alliance activated

In August, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement — modelled on NATO’s Article 5 collective-defense clause — under which an armed attack against one is regarded as an attack against all three. On October 5 the agreement was triggered for the first time, and Pakistan and Turkey pledged to deploy troops to Saudi Arabia. Analysts expect the deployment to focus on helping intercept Houthi missiles and drones; Turkey has said it will not join offensive operations but will consider defensive help such as air-defence systems and electronic-warfare support.

Iran, which backs the Houthis, has renewed its offer to mediate, but Yemen’s foreign minister rejected the proposal, accusing Tehran of being a party to the conflict.

A humanitarian catastrophe deepens

The United Nations said Tuesday that more than 250,000 people have fled renewed fighting in Yemen, with growing alarm for those sheltering in the southwestern city of Taiz, where access is “essentially blocked” after Houthi fighters encircled the city. UNICEF said sanitation services in Taiz have “come to a halt” amid a diesel shortage caused by blocked supply routes, while the World Food Programme said wheat flour stocks in affected areas are nearly exhausted. Ten of the governorate’s 16 districts already suffer emergency levels of hunger.

Energy markets on edge

The Houthi advances threaten the strategic Bab el-Mandeb shipping route, through which a significant share of global oil passes. The attacks on Aramco facilities and airports have sharpened fears of further disruption to oil flows from the world’s largest energy exporter.

For Yemen’s government, Monday’s strike was the bloodiest single day for its forces since the ceasefire collapsed — and a reminder, delivered to teenagers barely out of school, that the country’s frozen war has fully thawed. News Plus Globe will continue tracking developments across the region in our live coverage.