RIYADH, Saudi Arabia: Houthi rebels lined up in Iran, Yemen, said on Sunday they attacked with drones and missiles a major Saudi oil port in the Persian Gulf. Saudi authorities said the strike caused no casualties or damage.
The Saudi Ministry of Energy said an assault “from the sea” had targeted oil tanks at the port of Ras Tanura. He condemned what he called “repeated acts of sabotage and hostility” aimed at supplying energy to the world.
“All indications point to Iran,” said a Saudi royal court adviser who said he was briefed on the matter. He said it was unclear whether the origin was Iran or Iraq, but that it had not come from the direction of Yemen.
Iranian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An Iraqi official said he was unaware of any connection between his country and the attack.
In 2019, a drone and missile attack at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry temporarily shut down half of the kingdom’s crude production. At the time, the Houthis claimed responsibility, but the U.S. said the attack was launched from Iraq or Iran, which denied the allegations.
Yahya Saree, a spokesman for Houthi forces fighting the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen, said the group used 10 drones and a ballistic missile on Sunday in an attack in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, as well as four drones and six missiles aimed at the south Saudi regions of Asir and Jazan.
Houthis have stepped up airstrikes against Saudi Arabia following the January inauguration of President Biden, who has pledged to end the six-year civil war in Yemen and recalibrate Washington’s relationship with Riyadh.
The Biden administration has said it wants to re-enter the 2015 nuclear deal and then negotiate a deeper and broader deal with Tehran that also addresses Iran’s military stance and activities in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia is leading a military coalition that intervened in the Yemeni conflict, which is now facing one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. The coalition launched a new round of airstrikes in the capital Sanaa earlier Sunday, warning that Saudi citizens were “a red line.”
Hussein Nasser, the father of two children living in Sanaa, said the coalition’s bombing of a nearby military base shattered the windows of dozens of houses in his neighborhood and injured several people. “Five airstrikes at a time while people and their children were eating,” he said.
After the incident in Ras Tanura, the port was operating normally, according to various shipping sources. “Loads continue as normal,” said a manager of a shipping agency who rejected his name. I had no knowledge of any distribution center.
Ras Tanura is the site of Saudi Aramco’s oldest and largest oil refinery and the world’s largest offshore oil cargo facility. The 550,000-barrel daily refinery supplies more than a quarter of the kingdom’s fuel supply.
The shrapnel from a ballistic missile, which Houthis said had fired at military targets in the nearby city of Dammam, fell near the residential area of Aramco, in neighboring Dhahran, according to the Saudi statement.
An Aramco employee living in the area said he saw two projectiles intercepted by Saudi air defenses, which rely heavily on U.S. Patriot anti-missile systems. Nearby residents reported that the windows of their homes had shaken or even been shattered by the blasts.
Images shared on social media showed bright bursts of light in the sky over the oil-rich eastern province of Saudi Arabia, and later a plume of white smoke.
—Benoit Faucon and Saleh al-Batati contributed to this article.
Write to Summer Said at [email protected] and Stephen Kalin at [email protected]
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