Saudi-led coalition calls tanker attacks in Gulf a major escalation

The attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday are a "major escalation", the spokesman for a Saudi-led military coalition battling the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen said.

"From my perspective ... we can connect it to the Houthi attacks at Bab al-Mandeb," Colonel Turki al-Malki told reporters in Riyadh, referring to attacks in July 2018 on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea strait blamed on the Houthi movement.