Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia ignite fires at oil facilities and wound 73 people

This is a locator map for Saudi Arabia with its capital, Riyadh. AP/AP hide caption toggle caption AP/AP CAIRO — A wave of Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia Tuesday wounded more than 70 people and ignited fires at several oil facilities and utilities in the kingdom's southern region, authorities said, a major escalation in the renewed conflict between an important U.S. ally and the Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen. The attacks come after weeks of escalating clashes between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen, which shattered a four-year truce in the country's civil war. The flare-up delivered a new jolt to a region already destabilized by nearly three years of wars and brings more uncertainty for the global economy. The fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis threatens to squeeze shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a critical route of the Arabian Peninsula for oil and global trade. It also comes at a time when the Iran war has nearly halted shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway that moved about one-fifth of the world's oil before the war. Fighting has raged on multiple fronts including Yemen's west coast, with government forces saying th...