Houthi Yemen rebels fire ballistic missiles and drones at oil facilities and weapons sites in Saudi Arabia.
Houthi Yemen rebels fired drones and missiles at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry on Sunday, raiding Saudi Aramco’s facility at Ras Tanura in an alleged attack aimed at the security and sustainability of the world’s power supply.
Announcing the attacks, the Houthis also said they attacked military targets in Saudi cities in Dammam, Asir and Jazan.
The Saudi energy ministry said an oil storage plant at Ras Tanura, the oil refinery site and the world’s largest offshore oil loading facility, was attacked by a drone but no casualties or loss of property were lost.
“One of the petrol tank fields at Port Ras Tanura in the Eastern Province, one of the world’s largest oil ports, was attacked this morning by a drone, coming from the sea,” a ministry said Saudi energy in a statement released by the official Saudi Press Agency.
She said shrapnel fell from ballistic missiles near the Aramco residential building in Dhahran.
Yahya Sarea, a Houthi military defense official, said the group fired 14 drones and eight ballistic missiles across the border with the kingdom in “widespread activity in the heart of Saudi Arabia”.
The U.S. mission in Saudi Arabia has advised U.S. citizens to be cautious following reports of possible attacks and explosions in the Dhahran, Dammam and Khobar region of Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.
The province is home to most of Saudi Aramco’s oil production and export facilities.
The military for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen said Saudi Arabia will take all necessary measures to protect itself, and to ensure the stability of energy supply and marine traffic.
The attacks on a petrol tank farm at Ras Tanura port and on Aramco facilities in Dhahran were “brutal terrorist attacks”, the defense ministry said in a statement to the state news agency SPA.
Enlargement
The coalition said earlier on Sunday it had seized 12 drones launched by the Houthis, including five fired into the kingdom, and two ballistic missiles fired by the Houthis. firing towards Jazan.
Separately, the coalition said it had carried out airstrikes on Houthi military targets in Sanaa and other regions and warned that “civilians and civilian objects in the Kingdom are a red line”.
Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported that coalition warplanes had launched a “series of airstrikes” on al-Nahda and Attan areas in the capital, Sanaa.
Smoke and dust rise near buildings from airstrikes launched by a Saudi-led coalition on Sanaa [Khaled Abdullah/Reuters]
The Houthis, which has been fighting the coalition since its involvement in the Yemeni civil war in March 2015, recently fired cross-border missiles and a drone at Saudi Arabia.
Last Thursday, the Houthi movement said it fired missiles at the Aramco petrol products distribution center in the Red Sea city of Jeddah that was attacked by the Houthis in November 2020, hitting a storage tank. Aramco and Saudi authorities have not commented on Thursday’s claim.
The rise comes as the United States and the United Nations step up diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire to pave the way for a resumption of political talks with the support of the UN to end the conflict.