Najran: Saudi helicopter crashes, six wounded in Houthi attack

A Saudi reconnaissance helicopter crashed in the Najran region in the south of the country on Sunday, 18 October 2026, killing its two crew members. In a separate incident in the same city, a projectile attributed to the Houthis, allies of the Islamic Republic in Yemen, wounded six people.

Turki al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, said the helicopter was an AH-6i and was flying in an area under the responsibility of Saudi Arabia's Ministry of the National Guard. The coalition attributed the crash to a technical fault. Saudi civil defence also said six people were wounded when a projectile hit Najran, and that three houses and three vehicles were damaged; civil defence did not name the type of projectile or who fired it, but Reuters reported it as a Houthi launch.

The Houthi claim about the Najran helicopter

The Houthis' military media published a video on X claiming that the Saudi helicopter was hit by a missile while engaged in "hostile activities" near Najran; the video does not clearly show the moment of impact, and the claim has not been independently verified. Yahya Saree, the Houthis' military spokesman, had also claimed on Saturday, 17 October, to have shot down an Apache helicopter near Najran, and it is unclear whether both claims relate to the same event. In response to his post, Turki al-Maliki published an image of Apache helicopters and wrote that these helicopters would soon enter the battlefield.

Najran has been targeted by the Houthis repeatedly in recent weeks. The group's attacks on Saudi targets, including Riyadh's international airport and Aramco's oil facilities, have intensified in recent days, and on 15 October Turki al-Maliki said Houthi attacks on Saudi airports had left 19 dead and 364 wounded. In the early hours of this same Sunday, Saudi Arabia intercepted two Houthi ballistic missiles aimed at Khamis Mushait.

Gulf Cooperation Council: the Houthis must be designated a terrorist group

The foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council states, at their 168th regular session in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, called on the international community to designate the Houthis a terrorist group and a threat to the security, peace and development of the region. They asked the United Nations to enforce rigorously the arms embargo on the Houthis and the Security Council resolutions on Yemen, and stressed the preservation of Yemen's territorial integrity and a peaceful solution based on the agreements of the country's national dialogue. The meeting also condemned the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic's missile and drone attacks on member states and Jordan.

The Houthis are currently on the United States' list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations; Donald Trump returned the group to that list in the winter of 2025. At the same Manama meeting, the Gulf states asked Russia to rein in the Islamic Republic, and earlier Egypt's National Defence Council had approved providing all necessary assistance to Saudi Arabia.

The helicopter crash and the new attack on Najran came on the day Gulf states called for the Houthis, allies of the Islamic Republic, to be recognised as a terrorist group.