Houthis strike Saudi oil giant’s facilities in the kingdom’s east

[thackney]

Houthis strike Saudi oil giant’s facilities in the kingdom’s east
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/saudi-houthi-attack-ras-tanura-aramco/2021/03/07/77f29148-7f72-11eb-9ca6-54e187ee4939_story.html
March 7, 2021

Yemen's Houthi rebels claimed that they hit an Aramco oil facility in eastern Saudi Arabia on Sunday, the first time the group has reached the company's facilities in that area.

In a televised statement, a spokesman for the rebel group, Brig. Gen. Yahya Sarea, said ballistic missiles and drones hit the oil giant’s facilities in Ras Tanura, a major port on Saudi Arabia’s Persian Gulf coast and one of its largest refineries, and military positions in nearby Dammam.

Saudi state media later confirmed the Ras Tanura attack, quoting an unnamed Energy Ministry official saying that one petroleum tank farm was attacked Sunday morning. The official said shrapnel from a ballistic missile fell near Aramco’s residential area in Dhahran, which hosts thousands of employees and their families, but there were no casualties or loss of property. The Saudi-led coalition, which has been fighting the Iranian-backed rebels since 2015, then said both attacks were intercepted and the drones downed.

The Houthis launched several armed drone attacks on the kingdom earlier in the day. The coalition said it intercepted 10, that the targets were civilian infrastructure, and that attacking “civilians and civilian objects in Saudi [Arabia] is a red line.”...

[thackney]

Strike on Saudi Undercuts Biden Iran Outreach
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-03-08/strike-on-saudi-undercuts-biden-iran-outreach

An attack on Saudi Arabia’s key oil export terminal may throw a wrench in U.S. President Joe Biden’s attempts to re-enter nuclear diplomacy with Iran and add to already strained ties with a key ally.

Yesterday’s missile and drone strikes, claimed by Iran-backed Houthi fighters in Yemen, are the most serious against Saudi oil installations since 2019. While the Houthis also claimed responsibility then, Riyadh pointed the finger at arch-rival Iran.

Those attacks hit a key processing facility and two fields, cutting production for about a month and exposing the vulnerability of the kingdom’s crude industry. Even though the new assault did no major damage, it underlined that risk again, pushing oil prices to a two-year high.

The U.S. has pledged to safeguard Saudi security interests, specifically from Yemen. But Biden’s team has also said it wants to “re-calibrate” relations with the Saudis and published a U.S. intelligence report implicating the kingdom’s crown prince in the killing of Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi in 2018....

[thackney]

Saudi-led coalition launches air strikes on Yemeni capital
https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20210307-saudi-led-coalition-launches-air-strikes-on-yemeni-capital

...The coalition, which said it had destroyed 10 armed drones, said in a statement on Saudi state media that "civilians and civilian objects in the Kingdom are a red line".

The coalition did not specify locations in the kingdom. The U.S. consulate in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah issued an advisory, citing reports of suspected attacks and explosions on Sunday near Jeddah and the southern town of Khamis Mushait.

In the Houthi-held Yemeni capital Sanaa, a Reuters witness reported several air strikes. Plumes of black smoke were visible in the vicinity of a military compound near Sanaa University. The Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said coalition warplanes bombed al-Nahda and Attan districts....