RIYADH/DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia issued security alerts across several areas on Tuesday, including the holy city of Mecca and the major port city of Jeddah, following a week of attacks by Iran-aligned fighters that have drawn the kingdom deeper into the Middle East conflict.
The alerts were lifted shortly afterward, with Saudi authorities yet to say whether any incoming projectiles struck the country. No group immediately claimed responsibility.
The warnings were the widest-ranging since the conflict escalated last week and marked the first such alert in Mecca since the war began. The city is home to Islam’s holiest shrines.
Iran-aligned Houthi fighters in Yemen have claimed several major attacks against Saudi Arabia over the past week, including strikes on an air base on Monday, which they said were retaliation for Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia has separately accused an Iran-backed group based in Iraq of Friday’s attack on the East-West Pipeline, one of the kingdom’s key oil transportation routes.
The 1,200-km pipeline links Saudi oil fields in the Gulf to the Red Sea and has become increasingly important as shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted by months of war.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Tuesday that oil flows through the pipeline could resume within days. Saudi Arabia has not provided a specific timeline.
Traders have warned that a prolonged shutdown could remove as much as 4% of global oil supply from markets.
Wright said Saudi Arabia was also taking measures, with U.S. military assistance, to move more oil through routes that avoid the Strait of Hormuz.
The growing Houthi presence near the Bab el-Mandeb strait, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden, has added another threat to global energy shipments.
Oil prices have climbed sharply since last week. Brent crude futures rose above $108 a barrel on Tuesday, while the average U.S. retail diesel price reached a record of nearly $6.27 a gallon.
A Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis said 13 civilians were wounded in Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia on Monday.
The Houthis also made rapid advances along Yemen’s western coast last week, seizing an island near the entrance to the Red Sea and gaining effective control over much of the country’s western coastline.
Officials from Yemen’s Saudi-backed government said Saudi and Yemeni aircraft had intensified strikes against Houthi positions, including around the historic Red Sea port of Mocha, which the Houthis captured last week.
“The Houthis are being put under heavy pressure,” one Yemeni official said, adding that the group was responding with an expanding campaign of missile and drone attacks against Saudi Arabia.
The United States faces a difficult choice over whether to provide greater military support to Saudi Arabia, potentially risking involvement in another costly regional conflict, or limit its role while threats to global energy supplies grow.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo on Tuesday. The Egyptian presidency said the leaders stressed the importance of maintaining freedom and security of navigation in the Bab el-Mandeb and Red Sea.
The crown prince also met U.S. regional military commander Admiral Brad Cooper in Jeddah on Monday and spoke with President Donald Trump last week about military assistance, which has so far been limited to intelligence support.