DUBAI (Reuters) – Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement said on Monday it had fired 17 drones and two ballistic missiles at targets in Saudi Arabia, including Saudi Aramco facilities in Jubail and Jeddah.
There was no immediate Saudi confirmation. Saudi-Aramco, the state-owned oil company, said in response to a query from Reuters that it would respond at the first opportunity.
Yahya Sarea, military spokesman for Houthi, said on Twitter that the group’s barrage included 10 Samad-3 drones fired at refineries in the city of Jeddah and Jubail in the eastern province.
Aramco’s Jeddah refinery was shut down in 2017, but there is an oil distribution plant that the Houthi’s previously targeted.
Sarea said on Monday that the movement also targeted military sites in the southern Saudi cities of Khamis Mushait and Jazan.
The Saudi-led coalition that intervened against the Houthis in Yemen’s war in 2015 said late Sunday it had intercepted and destroyed six armed Houthi drones.
The coalition entered the war after the Houthis expelled the internationally recognized government from the capital Sanaa.
The movement, which owns most of northern Yemen, has continued its border attacks on Saudi Arabia and a ground offensive in Yemen’s Marib region, while the United States and the United Nations are pushing for a ceasefire agreement.
Riyadh and the Yemeni government have welcomed a ceasefire, but the Houthis want to lift a sea and air blockade in full.
The conflict, seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, has killed tens of thousands of people and driven the Arabian Peninsula to the brink of starvation.
Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli and Ghaida Ghantous; writing by Raya Jalabi; Edited by Mark Heinrich and Toby Chopra