Houthi attacks kill seven in Yemen, refinery targeted in Saudi Arabia | Conflict News

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi group have launched an attack on a port in the country targeting Saudi soldiers, killing seven people, and also targeted a refinery in Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis said on Sunday they carried out an attack on “Saudi enemy” soldiers and equipment in Yemen’s Red Sea port city of al-Makha.

A military spokesman for the Houthi-led government in the capital, Sanaa, Yahya Saree, said the attack used a “large number of ballistic missiles and drones”.

Yemen’s Ministry of Transport condemned the attack, stating that it caused “serious damage” to the port’s infrastructure.

A Yemeni military spokesperson said the attack killed seven people.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, a fire reported at a refinery belonging to the state oil giant Aramco has been extinguished, authorities in Saudi Arabia say.

The blaze broke out early on Sunday at a site in the city of Jizan on the Red Sea, the Saudi Ministry of Energy wrote in a statement on X. No casualties were reported.

“The competent authorities are completing the necessary procedures to deal with the incident,” the ministry added. It did not say what caused the fire.

Later, Houthi rebels claimed the attack on the facility, located near Yemen’s border with Saudi Arabia, as the latest in a series of strikes claimed by the group on Saudi oil sites.

Saree said on X that the group “succeeded in targeting the Aramco refinery in Jizan with a drone, and the strike was precise”.

He said the attack came in response to Saudi Arabia’s “breach of the airspace of the provinces of Saada and Hajjah” with drones.

There was no immediate comment on the claim from Riyadh. Al Jazeera has contacted the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

‘Containing the Houthi threat’

Rashad al-Alimi, head of Yemen’s Saudi-backed presidential council, briefed US Mission to Yemen Chargé d’Affaires Neil Hop on Sunday on the developments, according to a statement.

He said the Houthis’ attacks put a responsibility on the international community, foremost among them the United States, to “move beyond only containing the Houthi threat to addressing its sources and instruments”.

The Houthis last month claimed attacks on Aramco facilities in Jizan. They also said they targeted oil installations in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia’s principal west coast export gateway.

Aramco chief Amin Nasser said last ⁠week that recent attacks on the company’s facilities had caused some production interruptions but he was confident operations could be restored quickly. He said the attacks ‌had no material operational or financial impact.

The attacks have added to growing strains on a 2022 truce in the war between the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognised government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis, who took control of Sanaa in 2014, also declared a blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea last month, threatening shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

On Friday, Riyadh signed a defence pact with Turkiye and Pakistan amid rising regional tensions from the United States-Israel war on Iran.

Saudi authorities have also blamed Iran-aligned armed groups in Iraq for attacks on its oil facilities.