Gulf-Iran Talks Postponed as Houthis Strike Saudi Airbase, Oil Prices Climb

A planned meeting between Gulf states and Iran was postponed on Monday, hours after Yemen's Houthi movement launched a fresh assault on Saudi Arabia and crude prices climbed on supply fears.

Oman had been set to host the talks aimed at reviving negotiations over the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most critical oil shipping corridor, which has been largely closed since the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February. Oman's Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi announced overnight that the meeting had been delayed "in the interests of consensus." Iran said the postponement came at Saudi Arabia's request.

The Houthis said they fired dozens of missiles and drones at a Saudi military airbase in Khamis Mushait, near the border, striking aircraft hangars, radar systems, runways and ammunition depots. The group described the attack as retaliation for hundreds of Saudi airstrikes on Yemen in recent days. Saudi authorities issued brief emergency alerts in Khamis Mushait and three other southern cities that have previously come under Houthi fire.

The Houthis began a rapid advance across Yemen last week, seizing an island at the mouth of the Red Sea on Friday. A separate attack the same day, which Riyadh blamed on Iran-backed fighters in Iraq, disabled Saudi Arabia's east-west pipeline — the main route for Middle East oil that bypasses the blockaded Strait of Hormuz.

Crude prices rose more than 3% as markets reopened on Monday. Traders warn the pipeline closure could cut off as much as 4% of global oil supply if it is not restored within days. Satellite imagery shows sections of the pipeline damaged by fires, though Riyadh has not provided a firm estimate for how long it will remain shut. In the United States, the average retail price of diesel hit a record above $6.23 a gallon.

Separately, Iran published a list of 77 ships it said had violated its protocols for operating in the Strait of Hormuz. Vessels on the list would face "restrictions on future passages, including fines, detention, or confiscation," and any ship assisting them by accepting cargo transfers would also be added.

The renewed fighting in Yemen presents a dilemma for Washington, which faces pressure to support its Saudi allies while avoiding expansion of the costly war into a new theatre. Saudi Arabia has led an Arab coalition battling the Houthis for more than a decade, after the group captured Yemen's capital in 2014. The conflict had largely been quiet under a ceasefire in recent years, but hostilities have resumed, with the Houthis pushing back forces loyal to the Saudi-backed government in the south.

Thousands of Yemenis have fled inland from the coast as the Houthis advanced into cities including the historic Red Sea port of Mocha last week. Aisha Muhammad, an elderly woman burning twigs to heat a kettle in government-held territory near Taiz, said she had left behind two daughters and three sons who could not escape. "They can't even go out to the market to get food and drinking water. They are being blocked and shot at, so they are trapped inside their homes," she said. "They cannot reach us, and we cannot return to them."

On Friday the Houthis captured Perim Island, located inside the Bab el-Mandeb, the "Gate of Tears" strait at the mouth of the Red Sea.

U.S. President Donald Trump is under pressure to end the war to ease the global energy shortage and lower prices that are hurting his Republican Party ahead of November's mid-term elections. Three sources said Washington has so far rebuffed pleas from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to intervene in Yemen. Trump confirmed over the weekend that he had spoken with the prince and said the Houthis had also called asking Washington to stay out of the dispute.

The United States bombed the Houthis in 2025 for two months, but Trump called off that campaign after reaching a ceasefire with the group, which he said had promised not to attack ships in the Red Sea. Speaking from a golf tournament at one of his resorts in Ireland, Trump said he expected the Iran war to end shortly after the November elections, after which oil prices would "drop like a rock."