Coalition Says It Destroyed 5 Tunnels and 4 Missile Launchers in Yemen Operation

Key Facts

The coalition’s Joint Forces Command announced on October 26, 2026, that it had carried out a military operation inside Yemen, saying its forces destroyed five tunnels used to store ballistic missiles, four launchers and a missile storage facility. The Saudi Press Agency reported the tally in a statement attributed to the coalition, which said the operation aimed to neutralize sources of threat. The coalition said the strikes were in response to repeated attacks that sought to target civilians and civilian infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and Yemen with ballistic missiles and drones. The announced tally identifies targets linked to missile storage and launches, as well as the storage facility, without saying that drones were among the targets destroyed. The Associated Press did not independently verify the claims that the tunnels, launchers and facility were destroyed.

According to the coalition statement, the operation also covered Houthi fortifications, personnel and military equipment along front lines inside Yemen. The command said its forces focused on cutting supply lines between areas under Houthi control, linking the stated targets to storage and launch sites and the movement of supplies between fronts. The Associated Press quoted spokesman Turki al-Maliki as saying the operation aimed to cut those lines, consistent with the coalition’s description of the mission. The statement said the attacks cited to justify the operation used ballistic missiles and drones to target civilians and civilian infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Al-Maliki described the attacks as repeated, while the coalition said its command would continue taking deterrent operational measures to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and civilians inside Yemen.

The announcement of the broader operation came on the same day the coalition issued a separate statement about destroying two launch platforms in Sanaa. The statement said one of the platforms had been used to launch a ballistic missile toward Riyadh. This adds details about targeting launch platforms in Sanaa to the objectives covered by the announced operation, without conflating the tallies in the two statements. On October 27, Saudi Civil Defense said debris from two ballistic missiles launched toward Riyadh fell after they were intercepted and destroyed. It said the debris caused material damage to a building, a project under construction and a vehicle, in a development one day after the operation was announced.

The coalition had previously announced on October 10 that it carried out a large-scale operation that it said destroyed 136 military targets in areas controlled by the Houthis. That announced tally differs from the specific targets listed in the October 26 statement, which named tunnels, launchers and a storage facility and did not describe the operation as covering the same number of targets. As background to the fighting, the Associated Press linked the escalation to strikes on Houthi-controlled Sanaa airport in July. The agency said those strikes effectively ended the 2022 ceasefire agreement, which had halted most of the fighting. This context places the operation announcement in an escalation phase that the agency said followed the end of the truce, though the coalition statement did not specify when its military measures would end.

The operation announcement coincided with regional meetings in Tehran, where the Associated Press said the war in Yemen and Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia were among the topics discussed. Participants said talks on regional peace and security would continue but gave no date or location for the next meeting. On the same day, Egypt’s parliament approved a request by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to provide military support to Saudi Arabia to help counter Houthi attacks, the agency reported. The coalition, meanwhile, said its command would continue taking deterrent operational measures to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and civilians inside Yemen. The announcement gave no date for a subsequent operation or further details about the measures the coalition said would continue.