Houthi Rebels Launch Missile And Drone Attacks Targeting Riyadh And Yanbu

Missile and Drone Strikes Target Riyadh and Aramco Facilities

Explosions shook the Saudi capital of Riyadh in the pre-dawn hours, sending a thick plume of black smoke billowing from fuel storage tanks near the King Khalid International Airport. Residents reported trembling windows and widespread panic as civil defense alerts blared across the city and neighboring Al-Kharj. Saturday, earlier in the day, Saudi Civil Defense alerts were broadcast in Riyadh, with two others in Al-Kharj province, and authorities did not specify the nature of the threat nor report any casualties or damage related to these alerts. These warnings came a day after the Saudi Civil Defense announced that the danger had passed in seven cities and provinces stretching from the southwest to the northwest of the kingdom, following a broader series of alerts. Thursday, Saudi authorities announced that one person had been killed and two others injured by debris from a Houthi drone intercepted and destroyed over the western city of Taif, while damaging several buildings and vehicles. On July 20, the Houthis announced what they called a “maritime blockade” against Saudi Arabia, before subsequently claiming missile and drone attacks.

Photo: lapresse.ca

The Houthi group in Yemen claimed the launch of missile and drone attacks against “sensitive targets” in the Saudi capital Riyadh, as well as a separate attack against Saudi Aramco oil company facilities in the coastal city of Yanbu, according to Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree. The spokesperson wrote Friday on the American social network X that the group had carried out two operations using “a large number of ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones,” indicating that the first operation targeted “sensitive targets” in Riyadh, while the second targeted Saudi Aramco in the coastal city of Yanbu in the west of the country, although no Saudi reaction to the Houthi claims had been recorded at that time. Previously, on Tuesday, September 8, the Houthis claimed attacks against economic and military sites in Saudi Arabia using dozens of missiles and drones, in response to strikes attributed to Saudi forces in Yemen. Saree had then stated that “The Yemeni armed forces carried out a large-scale and long-range military operation,” targeting sites of the oil giant Aramco as well as the King Khalid airbase, “using dozens of ballistic missiles and drones,” in retaliation for “121 strikes” carried out by Riyadh in Yemen over the last three days. According to the Ansarollah media, close to the Houthis, the rebels struck using drones and missiles the Abha international airport, the King Khalid airbase as well as facilities of the oil giant Aramco in Abha and Jizan.

Photo: information.tv5monde.com

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Houthi rebels also claimed on Sunday, September 13, an attack using ballistic missiles and drones against the Sharurah military base in southern Saudi Arabia, as Riyadh supports Yemeni government forces against the blitz offensive of the pro-Iranian fighters. This attack targeted “weapons depots as well as command and control centers from which the aggression against our nation and our people is directed, at the Sharurah military base,” near the border with Yemen, according to Yahya Saree, while the Saudi Civil Defense reported two injured following the fall of a projectile fired by the Houthis in the Jizan region, also bordering.

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AFP journalists reported that loud explosions rang out in the Saudi capital during the night, after alert messages sent to residents by the authorities, and residents said they heard a new series of explosions. “We saw black smoke and flames towards the airport,” said one of them, while another 27-year-old resident from the north of the capital, who did not wish to give his name, testified: “I heard the alert, then my windows shook. I was really scared.” A large plume of black smoke is rising from the fuel depot of King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, and images broadcast online and verified by AFP show a column of black smoke rising above airport buildings, with firefighters having extinguished a fire in the afternoon on a fuel tank bearing the logo of the Saudi oil giant Aramco near the airport, according to an AFP journalist.

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Saudi Arabia denounced this series of strikes and promised to retaliate against what constitutes their most significant attack on Saudi territory in several years, in a context where Yemen plunged back into war in July against a backdrop of regional escalation. “The Kingdom reaffirms its legitimate right to take all necessary measures to defend its sovereignty,” the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded in a statement, emphasizing “the need to immediately end all forms of escalation practiced by this militia, as well as the persistent threats against maritime navigation.”

Photo: AA

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Hundreds Dead and Thousands Displaced in Escalating Ground Warfare

Fighting in recent weeks in western Yemen has caused hundreds of deaths and triggered the displacement of tens of thousands of people, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which fears an increase in displaced persons in the coming days, while sources within both camps interviewed by AFP reported more than 300 deaths since Thursday. Facing the advance of the rebels, government forces announced Saturday and Sunday morning several waves of strikes on the region bordering the Red Sea, and the Houthis for their part reported multiple Saudi bombardments, to which they claimed on Sunday to have replied by attacking a military base in the south of the kingdom with drones and missiles. The pro-Iranian rebels, who until now controlled a large part of the north of the country, including the capital Sanaa, and Hodeida in the west, progressed along the coast in a few days, seizing territories during their blitz offensive.