Yemen’s Houthi forces launched an attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry, including a Saudi Aramco facility at Ras Tanura, and fired drones and missiles. Riyadh, however, claimed the attack failed.
The Saudi energy ministry said there were no casualties or loss of property.
The defence ministry said it intercepted an armed drone coming from the sea prior to hitting its target at an oil storage yard at Ras Tanura, site of a refinery and the world’s biggest offshore oil loading facility.
Shrapnel from a ballistic missile fell near a residential compound in Dhahran used by state-controlled Saudi Aramco, the ministries said.
Announcing the attacks, the Houthis, who have been battling a Saudi-led coalition for six years, also said they attacked military targets in the Saudi cities of Dammam, Asir and Jazan.
“Such acts of sabotage do not only target the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but also the security and stability of energy supplies to the world, and therefore, the global economy,” a ministry spokesman said in a statement on state media.
Announcing the attacks, the Houthis, who have been battling a Saudi-led coalition for six years, also said they attacked military targets in the Saudi cities of Dammam, Asir and Jazan.
The Saudi energy ministry said an oil storage yard at Ras Tanura, the site of an oil refinery and the world’s biggest offshore oil loading facility, was attacked with a drone coming from the sea. The defence ministry said the armed drone was intercepted and destroyed prior to reaching its target.
Shrapnel from a ballistic missile fell near a residential compound in Dhahran used by state-controlled Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company, the ministry said, adding that neither attack resulted in casualties or loss of property.
That attack forced Saudi Arabia to temporarily shut more than half of its crude output, causing a huge price spike.
Meanwhile, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said that the group had fired 14 drones and eight ballistic missiles in a “wide operation in the heart of Saudi Arabia”.
The Houthis recently stepped up cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia at a time when the United States and the United Nations are pushing for a ceasefire to revive stalled political negotiations to end the war.
Last Thursday, the movement said it fired a missile at an Aramco petroleum products distribution plant in the Red Sea city of Jeddah which the Houthis had attacked in November 2020, hitting a storage tank. Aramco and Saudi authorities have not commented about Thursday’s claim.
The Saudi military alliance intervened in Yemen in March 2015 after the Houthis ousted the Saudi-backed government from power in the capital, Sanaa. The conflict is widely seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Colonel Turki al-Malki, the spokesman for the Saudi defence ministry and of the Saudi-led military coalition, said in a statement that the ministry would take “all necessary, deterrent measures to safeguard its national assets”.
Earlier, the Saudi coalition said it had conducted air strikes on Houthi military targets in Sanaa and other Yemeni regions on Sunday and warned that “civilians and civilian objects in the kingdom are a red line”.
It said the Houthis had been emboldened after the Biden administration revoked a terrorist designation, imposed by former Trump administration, on the group last month.
President Joe Biden also declared stoppage of US support for offensive operations by the Saudi coalition but said the United States would continue to help Saudi Arabia defend itself.
The six-year war has killed tens of thousands of people and pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.
