Houthis strike oil facility near Riyadh as Saudi forces hit Sanaa

Yemen’s Houthis claimed an attack on an oil facility near the Saudi capital on Saturday, where an AFP journalist saw flames and smoke, and accused the Gulf kingdom of striking Sanaa dozens of times.

The foes have traded strikes since the Houthis seized all of Yemen’s Red Sea coast and took control of the Bab al-Mandab strait in a lightning offensive last month.

Houthi-affiliated channel Al-Masirah TV reported that “Saudi enemy aircraft” hit Sanaa with 26 strikes, after earlier reporting “Saudi aggression” against the Yemeni capital, without providing details on the targets or casualties.

Two correspondents in Sanaa reported hearing loud explosions and seeing warplanes firing missiles at the city.

In neighbouring Saudi Arabia, flames and smoke were seen rising on Saturday afternoon from an Aramco facility south of Riyadh, an AFP journalist said.

While the Saudi authorities are yet to comment, late on Saturday, the Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group had targeted an oil facility in Riyadh with ballistic missiles and drones, adding that they sparked fires at the targeted sites.

The AFP journalist reported seeing firefighters attempting to extinguish a blaze at Aramco’s Riyadh refinery, located south of the capital, while ambulances and police vehicles were stationed near the facility.

The Houthis’ Al-Masirah channel earlier on Saturday also reported missile strikes on the telecommunications network in Yemen’s northwestern governorate of Saada, one of the group’s strongholds.

It comes after the Houthis said that Saudi Arabia bombed the Yemeni capital itself on Thursday night for the first time since renewed fighting broke out between the two sides in July.

Hunger warning

After several years of calm, Yemen was plunged back into civil war that month, pitting the Iran-backed Houthis, who control most of northwest Yemen including Sanaa, against Yemen’s internationally recognised government.

The government, based in the city of Aden, controls much of the country’s south and east — a region that is larger but much less populated.

Hostilities were reignited after four years of a fragile truce when Iran sent a plane to Sanaa carrying a Houthi delegation.

The flight did not seek authorisation from Saudi Arabia, contravening a practice in place for a decade.

Riyadh retaliated with strikes on Sanaa airport, and in response the Houthis attacked Saudi territory for the first time since 2022.

Since then, fighting has intensified with the Houthis launching a lightning offensive in which they seized control of coastal regions along the Bab al-Mandab strait.

They have also struck multiple Saudi targets including oil infrastructure and the capital Riyadh while also announcing a naval blockade on Saudi shipping in the Red Sea.

The renewed fighting has worsened the already appalling humanitarian conditions in Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries, with the World Food Programme warning on Friday that three-quarters of the population was unable to meet its basic food needs.

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