DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s Houthi movement, aligned with Iran, said on Monday it fired 17 drones and two ballistic missiles at Saudi targets, including Saudi Aramco facilities in Jubail and Jeddah.
There was no immediate Saudi confirmation. Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company, said when it was contacted by Reuters that it would respond as soon as possible.
Houthi Army spokesman Yahya Sarea said on Twitter that the group’s dam included 10 Samad-3 drones fired at refineries in the Red Sea city of Jeddah and the eastern province of Jubail.
The Aramco refinery in Jeddah was shut down in 2017, but has a petroleum distribution plant there that the Houthis previously targeted.
Salt said Monday that the movement also targeted military sites in the southern Saudi cities of Khamis Mushait and Jazan.
The Saudi-led coalition that intervened in the 2015 Yemen war against the Houthis said late Sunday that it had intercepted and destroyed six armed Houthi drones.
The coalition went to war after Houthis ousted the internationally recognized government in the capital Sanaa.
The movement, which owns most of northern Yemen, has maintained cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia and a ground offensive in the Marib region of Yemen, at a time when the United States and the United Nations are encouraging a ceasefire agreement.
Riyadh and the Yemeni government have welcomed an armistice, but the Houthis want to lift a sea and air blockade completely.
The conflict, seen in the region as a war of empowerment between Saudi Arabia and Iran, has killed tens of thousands of people and driven the Arabian Peninsula nation to a brink of famine.
Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli and Ghaida Ghantous; written by Raya Jalabi; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Toby Chopra