RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Yemen’s Houthi rebels stationed in Iran said they attacked a major Saudi Arabian oil port on the Persian Gulf with drones and missiles on Sunday. Saudi authorities said the strike caused no casualties or damage.
The Saudi Energy Ministry said an attack “from the sea” targeted petroleum tanks in the port of Ras Tanura. It condemned what it called “repeated sabotage and hostility” aimed at energy supply to the world.
“All clues point to Iran,” said an adviser to the Saudi royal court, who said he had been briefed on the matter. He said it was not clear whether the origin was Iran or Iraq, but it was not from the direction of Yemen.
Iranian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An Iraqi official said he was not aware of any connection between his country and the attack.
In 2019, a drone and missile strike at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry temporarily halted half of the kingdom’s crude oil production. At the time, the Houthis claimed responsibility, but the US said the attack was launched from Iraq or Iran, which denied the charges.
Yahya Saree, spokesman for the Houthi Armed Forces fighting against the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen, said the group used 10 drones and a ballistic missile in an attack on Saudi Arabia’s eastern province on Sunday, as well as four drones and six. missiles aimed at the south. Saudi regions of Asir and Jazan.
The Houthis have stepped up airstrikes on Saudi Arabia following the January inauguration of President Biden, who has pledged to end Yemen’s six-year civil war and recalibrate Washington’s relationship with Riyadh.
The Biden administration has said it wants to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal and then negotiate a deeper, broader agreement with Tehran that also covers Iran’s military position and activities in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia is leading a military coalition that has intervened in the conflict in Yemen, which is now facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The coalition launched a new round of airstrikes on the capital, Sanaa, earlier Sunday, warning that attacking civilians in Saudi Arabia was “a red line.”
Hussein Nasser, a father of two living in Sana’a, said the coalition bombing of a nearby military base has shattered the windows in dozens of houses in his neighborhood, injuring several people. “Five airstrikes simultaneously while people and their children were having lunch,” he said.
According to various shipping sources, the port was operating normally after the Ras Tanura incident. “The cargoes are going through normally,” said a manager of a shipping agency there, who declined to be named. He was unaware that a distribution center was hit.
Ras Tanura is the site of Saudi Aramco’s oldest and largest oil refinery and the world’s largest offshore oil loading facility. The 550,000 barrels a day refinery provides more than a quarter of the kingdom’s fuel supply.
Shrapnel from a ballistic missile, which the Houthis said they fired at military targets in nearby Dammam, fell near Aramco’s residential area in neighboring Dhahran, the Saudi statement said.
An Aramco employee who lives in the area said he saw two projectiles being intercepted overhead by Saudi air defense, which relies heavily on the American Patriot’s anti-missile systems. Local residents reported that the windows of their homes were shaking or even shattered by the blast.
Images shared on social media showed bright rays of light in the sky over Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich eastern province and later a white plume of smoke.
—Benoit Faucon and Saleh al-Batati contributed to this article.
Write to Summer Said at [email protected] and Stephen Kalin at [email protected]
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