Houthis vow more attacks on Saudi airports and oil sites after Aramco strike

Houthi threat to Saudi infrastructure

Yemen's Houthis, an Iran-aligned group, said on Wednesday, 14 October, that they would keep attacking airports and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. They said they had claimed responsibility for the strike on the headquarters of Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, in Dhahran in the east of the country the previous day. The group said it fired ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones at Aramco facilities in Dhahran, at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and at an Aramco refinery, without saying when. Their military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, said operations would continue in the coming days against what he called enemy airports and oil facilities. The Houthis also urged international shipping companies, citizens and workers to evacuate such sites, which they described as legitimate military targets.

The Dhahran headquarters strike

Saudi Arabia's energy ministry said an administrative building of Aramco in Dhahran was targeted late on Tuesday, 13 October, causing a limited fire. The ministry said the authorities responded quickly and that there were no injuries or deaths. A company source told Reuters that a ballistic missile had hit the complex, damaging the top three floors of an office tower, while two other people familiar with the matter said the building caught fire. Six sources told Reuters they heard loud explosions near the complex, and four of them said an evacuation order had been issued for the building. The complex oversees a wide network of onshore and offshore oil facilities, pipelines, refineries and export terminals. Aramco staff were told to work from home on Wednesday, one source told Reuters. Reports also said a fire broke out at the Fadhili gas processing plant, owned by Saudi Aramco in the Eastern Province, after a missile attack by Yemeni forces, and a NASA FIRMS satellite image showed fires at other facilities near Dhahran.

Riyadh under repeated missile fire

Riyadh has been the target of daily Houthi attacks in recent reports without a stated start date. On Saturday, 10 October, a ballistic missile hit King Khalid International Airport, killing 13 people, the deadliest attack in Saudi Arabia in a decade. New attacks followed and led to a suspension of flights across the country, and the Riyadh airport has been hit four times in total. On Wednesday, the Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted a ballistic missile fired towards Riyadh, and loud blasts were heard in the capital before a civil defence alert was lifted. Debris from the intercepted missiles fell in Riyadh and injured four people, two women, a man and a child, while SPA, citing a civil defence spokesman, reported that 15 homes were damaged. The coalition also said debris from a missile it intercepted over Dhahran fell on a built-up area, and a second ballistic missile aimed at Harad in the Eastern Province was neutralised.

Motives and Trump's response

The Houthis say the attacks retaliate for Saudi support to Yemeni government forces in a war that resumed in September and was fuelled by the US-Iran confrontation in the Gulf. The escalation has also hit the diversification plans of Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has aimed to reduce the kingdom's dependence on oil. Donald Trump posted on social media on Tuesday, 13 October, that the Houthis were deliberately trying to push up oil prices on Iran's orders ahead of US midterm elections on 3 November. He wrote that he had believed they learned their lesson a year before that post, when the United States bombed them and then stopped at their request. Trump also wrote that he would be there after the elections, and said over the weekend of 10 and 11 October that he was considering joining the campaign against the Houthis.