A Saudi military helicopter crashed near the Yemen border on Sunday, killing both crew members, in the latest deadly flashpoint of a reignited war between Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Houthi rebels that is now rattling the Saudi capital itself.

The Saudi-led coalition said an AH-6i reconnaissance helicopter belonging to the Ministry of National Guard went down in the Najran region due to a "technical malfunction," coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki said, according to a Reuters report carried by Prothom Alo. But Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said on social media that his forces had shot down a Saudi Apache gunship near Najran while it was carrying out "hostile activities" against Houthi positions along the border. Al-Maliki fired back with a photo of several Apache helicopters, writing, "You claim to have shot it down, but it will enter the battlefield soon."

A capital on edge

The dueling claims landed as Riyadh itself showed signs of strain. The 99-story Kingdom Centre tower — home to offices for firms including Merrill Lynch, McKinsey and the International Monetary Fund — ordered staff to work from home "until further notice" on Sunday, according to a wire report carried by the Korea Times. No reason was given, though the move follows a Houthi missile strike on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport roughly a week earlier that killed 13 people — the deadliest attack on Saudi soil in more than a decade — and has left the airport shut ever since.

Separately on Sunday, Houthi fire hit a residential neighborhood in Najran itself, injuring six people and damaging three homes and three vehicles, Saudi civil defense officials said, according to the Saudi Gazette. Civil defense called the strike a "flagrant violation of international humanitarian law."

"YOU CLAIM TO HAVE SHOT IT DOWN, BUT IT WILL ENTER THE BATTLEFIELD SOON." — Saudi coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki, responding to the Houthis' claim

The coalition also said it intercepted two drones near Riyadh, a third over the Eastern Province, and two ballistic missiles fired at the kingdom's south. The Houthis, for their part, said Saudi airstrikes killed 12 people in Yemen on Saturday, including three children.

The renewed fighting traces back to a four-year truce that collapsed this year as Yemen's war became entangled with the wider confrontation between the United States and Iran, the Houthis' chief backer. Egypt has moved to back Riyadh: President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi asked lawmakers to authorize support for Saudi defense, insisting "we are speaking only about defense," with Egypt's parliament holding an emergency session on the matter Sunday.

No independent, on-the-ground verification of either side's account of the helicopter's fate was available Sunday, and the coalition has not named the two crew members killed. It remains unclear how far the war's rapid escalation will draw in other regional powers. For now, Najran — and a noticeably quieter Riyadh skyline — are bracing for what comes next.