Saudi-led coalition says power station attacked in Medina, blames Houthis

The Saudi-led coalition has accused Yemen's Houthis of attacking an electricity facility in Medina, in western Saudi Arabia. The coalition said the power distribution station supplies electricity to the Masjid an-Nabawi, one of Islam's holiest sites. It said the incident took place on Tuesday and that one transformer was taken out of service, but the wider electricity network was not affected.

Sponsored

According to the coalition, an investigation and examination of drone wreckage pointed to Houthi planning and execution. The Houthis denied the accusation, with a military source quoted by a Houthi-run outlet calling it a lie. The same source said the allegation was intended to cover up what it described as Saudi Arabia's failure to substantiate an earlier claim that the Houthis had targeted Mecca.

The coalition said the Medina attack formed part of repeated attempts to target the two holy mosques, referring to the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. It said it would continue taking measures to protect holy sites and pilgrims. The accusation adds to a wider pattern of cross-border attacks and interceptions linked by the coalition to the Houthis, including separate claims that drones and ballistic missiles were intercepted over southern Saudi Arabia.

The incident matters because Medina is a religious centre of major significance and because the facility was linked directly to power supply for the Prophet's Mosque. Even though the coalition said the electricity network was not disrupted, any attack on infrastructure serving a holy site carries security and symbolic weight. It also comes against the backdrop of the long-running war in Yemen, in which the Houthis have repeatedly been accused by Saudi Arabia and its allies of launching attacks beyond Yemen's borders.

Sponsored

The coalition's statement also sits alongside fighting reported in Yemen's Taiz governorate, where Saudi-backed government forces said they were repelling a large Houthi assault and inflicting heavy losses. That separate front underlines how the conflict continues to move between battlefield clashes inside Yemen and cross-border incidents affecting Saudi territory. The combination of claims suggests the confrontation remains active on several fronts at once.

What remains unclear is the full technical detail of the Medina incident, including the type of drone or weapon used and whether any damage beyond the transformer was caused. The Houthis have denied involvement, and no independent assessment was included in the supplied material. The next developments to watch are any further coalition evidence, any response from the Houthis, and whether there are additional attacks or interceptions in Saudi Arabia.

#SaudiArabia #Medina #Houthis #powerstation #electricitynetwork