War expands as Iran-backed Houthis attack Saudi cities and US strikes Iranian tankers

BREAKING: War expands as Iran-backed Houthis launch attacks on Saudi cities, hours after US forces destroy five Iranian oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz.

Houthi missiles are now hitting Saudi cities. This war is spreading.

Hours after American forces destroyed five Iranian oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, Iran's allies in Yemen answered, launching attacks across the border into Saudi Arabia. That's the escalation everyone feared, Tehran doesn't have to fire back directly when it has proxies willing to do it from the south.

For Riyadh, this is the nightmare returning. The Houthis have hit Saudi territory before, airports, oil facilities, city centres, and every strike drags the kingdom deeper into a fight it has spent years trying to exit. And the Strait of Hormuz, where those tankers burned, is still the artery carrying a fifth of the world's oil through waters that are now an active battlefield.

A war that started between Washington and Tehran now has three fronts and touches the world's largest oil exporter. That's how regional wars become something bigger.

This is Kateryna Kovalenko, reporting for HIT.