Yemen's Houthis attack Saudi oil heartland with drones, missiles

Yemen’s Houthi forces fired drones and missiles at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry on Sunday, including a Saudi Aramco facility at Ras Tanura vital to petroleum exports, in what Riyadh called a failed assault on global energy security. 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 that neither attack resulted in casualties or loss of property.

A ministry spokesman said, 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.

The Saudi-led coalition earlier said it had intercepted 12 armed drones aimed at civilian targets without specifying a location as well as two ballistic missiles fired towards Jazan. The sites attacked on Sunday lie on the Gulf coast in Eastern Province, home to most of Aramco’s production and export facilities.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said on Sunday 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.