Yemen's Houthis say struck refinery on Saudi Red Sea coast

SANAA: Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said on Sunday they had struck an oil facility on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast after the Gulf kingdom said it had extinguished a fire at the site.

The group’s military spokesman Yahya Saree said the Houthis had “succeeded in targeting the Aramco refinery in Jizan with a drone, and the strike was precise”, adding the attack had been launched in response to Saudi drone incursions into northwest Yemen.

Aramco is Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company.

A 2022 truce in Yemen’s civil war, which Saudi Arabia entered more than a decade ago on the side of the internationally recognised government, appeared to have collapsed last month, with the Houthis announcing a maritime blockade of its northern neighbour and hitting Saudi tankers in the Red Sea.

The Houthis control vast swathes of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa and areas on the border with Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea provinces.

The Yemeni threat to shipping and Saudi oil facilities comes in parallel with Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has become the central flashpoint between Tehran and Washington amid efforts to end the Middle East war begun by the US and Israel in February.

Earlier, Saudi Arabia’s energy ministry said civil response teams had brought under control a fire at Jizan refinery without giving the cause of the blaze.

The facility was also targeted by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in July.

“Saudi Aramco’s industrial security firefighting teams extinguished a fire that broke out at dawn today, Sunday, at one of the facilities belonging to the Saudi Aramco refinery in Jizan, without any injuries,” the ministry said.