SANAA: Yemen’s Houthis said on Thursday they had attacked a pumping station on the Saudi East-West oil pipeline, an oil facility in the Saudi Red Sea city of Yanbu, and an Aramco building in the capital Riyadh.
The Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthis said later on Thursday it had intercepted and destroyed two drones launched by the group, one in the Riyadh region and another in the kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province.
Saudi Arabia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Houthis did not specify which day they had carried out the attacks.
The group has been firing ballistic missiles and drones at Saudi airports, ports and oil installations, turning US ally Saudi Arabia into a pressure point in a war that began with the US and Israel attacking Iran in February.
With the conflict in the Middle East disrupting oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, Riyadh has rerouted about 4 million barrels per day of crude via the East-West Pipeline to Yanbu, equivalent to about 4 per cent of global supply.
The pipeline has spared Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest exporter, from the brunt of the impact of the wartime shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz that has crippled exports from its neighbours.
Separately, the Houthi military spokesperson denied that the group had targeted Makkah with two ballistic missiles that Saudi Arabia’s civil defence said had been intercepted and destroyed on Wednesday, with debris falling in the Madina region, including in Sabuhah village.
The Houthis have repeatedly denied targeting Makkah and Madina, Islam’s two holiest cities, rejecting previous Saudi-led coalition accusations that they had launched drones toward the cities.
The Houthis seized Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014, prompting Riyadh to intervene the following year in support of the internationally recognised government.-Reuters