Yemen's Houthi movement said on Thursday that it had struck Saudi Arabia's Defence Ministry in Riyadh and a Saudi Aramco facility in the Red Sea port of Yanbu, as Saudi authorities confirmed that people were killed in attacks on the kingdom a day earlier.

Source: AzerNews

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group carried out four major operations in the previous 48 hours, using ballistic missiles and drones. Alongside Riyadh and Yanbu, he claimed attacks on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam in the east and Abha International Airport in the south-west.

Saree claimed the Yanbu strike was a direct hit that caused a fire, and that the Dammam airport attack disrupted air traffic. Those specific claims have not been independently verified, and Saudi authorities have not confirmed that the Defence Ministry or the Yanbu facility were hit.

What Saudi Arabia has confirmed

Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation said the death toll from Wednesday evening's attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam had risen to two — a Saudi citizen and an Indian national — with eight others wounded, one Saudi and seven foreign nationals from India, Yemen, Bangladesh and Nepal. The authority reported damage to the airport but said operations had resumed.

Separately, the Saudi Energy Ministry said air defences intercepted a drone heading for a processing facility at the Shaybah oil field on Wednesday. Falling debris set fire to a contractor's vehicle outside the perimeter, killing two foreign workers — a Filipino and a Nepali — and injuring a Pakistani and an Indian, it said. The ministry said the field's operations were not affected.

The Saudi-led coalition said only that it had intercepted drones over Riyadh and Medina, according to reporting on the Saudi response. AFP reported that essential staff at Aramco's headquarters in Dhahran were told to work from home on Thursday.

Claims, counter-claims and the UN reaction

Saree said the operations were a response to what he described as more than 2,900 Saudi airstrikes and missile attacks in the past 100 days, which the Houthis claim killed or wounded more than 562 people. That figure is a Houthi claim and has not been independently verified in this reporting.

He warned that if Saudi Arabia carried out threats to attack Yemeni tribes, the consequences would be, in his words, catastrophic and unpredictable, and said the group would continue operations until what it calls the aggression and blockade on Yemen end.

At the United Nations in New York on Thursday, Secretary-General António Guterres described continued Houthi attacks against civilian targets in Saudi Arabia as “totally unacceptable”, pointed to escalating hostilities around Taiz in Yemen, and said Yemen needs restraint and a political horizon.

Source: UN Media