Fighters from Yemen's Houthi movement have reportedly crashed suicide boats into a Saudi warship, killing two people.

The Saudi state news agency, SPA, said the vessels hit the ship off the western coast of Yemen on Monday, causing an explosion that killed two crew members and injured three others.

A statement from the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, reported by the agency, said the Saudi frigate "came under attack from three suicide boats belonging to the Houthi militias".

The Houthi movement's official news channel, al-Masira, contradicted this, quoting a military source as saying the explosion was caused by a guided missile they fired.

Image: A house destroyed in battles between Houthis and pro-government fighters in Taiz

Separately, the Houthis said they launched a ballistic missile at the coalition's base island of Zuqar, between Yemen and Eritrea, on Tuesday morning, also according to al-Masira.


It is not yet known if there were any casualties.

The Houthi movement - which champions Yemen's Zaidi Shia Muslim minority - is engaged in conflict with coalition troops and pro-government fighters, who are trying to advance northward to stop them taking control of Red Sea ports.

The conflict in Yemen began when the Shia Houthis, supported by former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and allies, seized the capital, Sanaa, in September 2014, overthrowing Saudi-backed President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi's government.

Special report: UK's role in Yemen's civil war

A Saudi-led coalition of mostly Gulf Arab nations then launched a military campaign against the Iran-backed rebels in March 2015.

The United Nations estimates thousands of civilians have been killed since airstrikes began.

In December the Prime Minister of the rebel Houthi government accused the UK of war crimes for sending arms to Saudi Arabia.

Later that month British Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon told Parliament that a "limited number" of BL-755 cluster bombs, exported from Britain in the 1980s, had been used by the Saudi-led coalition in the Yemen conflict.

Saudi Arabia said it would not use the bombs in Yemen any more.

The Saudi-led coalition warned the attack on its warship would "impact international navigation and the flow of humanitarian assistance to the port for Yemeni citizens".