DUBAI (Reuters) – The aligned Houthi movement in Iran, Yemen, said Monday it had fired 17 drones and two ballistic missiles at Saudi targets, including Saudi Aramco’s facilities in Jubail and Jeddah.
There was no immediate Saudi confirmation. Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company, said when Reuters contacted it it would respond as soon as possible.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said on Twitter that the group’s bombing included 10 Samad-3 drones fired at refineries in the city of Jeddah and Jubail in the eastern Red Sea province.
The Aramco refinery in Jeddah was decommissioned in 2017, but has a petroleum products distribution plant that houthis had previously targeted.
Sarea said Monday that the movement was also targeting military sites in the southern Saudi cities of Khamis Mushait and Jazan.
The Saudi-led coalition that intervened in the 2015 Yemen war against the Houthis said Sunday afternoon that it had intercepted and destroyed six Houthi armed drones.
The coalition went to war after the Houthis ousted the internationally recognized government of the capital Sanaa.
The movement, which maintains most of northern Yemen, has maintained cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia and a ground offensive in the Marib region of Yemen at a time when the United States and the United Nations are pushing for an agreement. cease fire.
Riyadh and the Yemeni government have welcomed a truce, but the Houthis want the total lifting of a sea and air blockade.
The conflict, seen in the region as a power war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, has killed tens of thousands of people and pushed the nation of the Arabian Peninsula to the brink of starvation.
Reports by Maher Chmaytelli and Ghaida Ghantous; writing by Raya Jalabi; Edited by Mark Heinrich and Toby Chopra