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.htmlMarch 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.â€...