Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis on Sunday claimed a drone strike on the Saudi Aramco refinery in Jizan, and the Saudi Energy Ministry said a fire that broke out at the Red Sea coastal site early in the morning had been extinguished with no casualties reported.
The claimed strike is the latest in a series of Houthi attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure, and it lands two days after Saudi Arabia signed a mutual-defense pact in Mecca with Turkey and Pakistan and amid a five-month war between the United States, Israel and Iran that has drawn in Iran-aligned groups across the region.
The claim
The Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree wrote on X that the group "succeeded in targeting the Aramco refinery in Jizan with a drone, and the strike was precise". Saree said the attack was a response to Saudi Arabia's "breach of the airspace of the provinces of Saada and Hajjah" with drones.
The Saudi Energy Ministry said on X that the fire broke out at Jizan early Sunday and that "The competent authorities are completing the necessary procedures to deal with the incident". The ministry reported no injuries.
Prior strikes
The Houthis last month claimed attacks on Aramco facilities in Jizan and said they targeted oil installations at Yanbu, the kingdom's principal west coast export gateway. Aramco Chief Executive Amin Nasser said last week that recent attacks on the company's facilities had caused some production interruptions but that operations could be restored quickly, and that the strikes had no material operational or financial impact.
Yemen fires back
Later Sunday, the Houthis said they carried out an attack on Saudi troops and equipment at Mocha, a Red Sea port on Yemen's west coast held by the internationally recognized government. Saree said the group used a "large number of ballistic missiles and drones". Yemen's Ministry of Transport condemned the strike, saying it caused serious damage to port infrastructure. Fayed al-Noman, an assistant undersecretary at Yemen's information ministry, said Mocha was renovated in recent years to handle shipping diverted from Houthi-held Hodeida.
Yemen's military said Saturday that it had conducted retaliatory attacks on Houthi positions on multiple front lines in central and eastern Yemen. Col. Majed al-Nazili, a spokesman for Yemen's military, said the strikes targeted the rebels' "sites and capabilities".
The Mecca pact
The refinery attack lands after Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a mutual-defense agreement in Mecca on Friday that treats an armed attack on any one of the three states as an attack on all three. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Anadolu Agency's "Editors' Desk" show Saturday that Egypt may join in the next phase of the deal.
The other side
The reporting available Sunday came almost entirely from one direction. Riyadh had not publicly responded to the Houthi claim beyond the Energy Ministry's brief statement, no U.S. comment was on the record, and the Houthi and Yemeni government accounts came from the parties themselves. Al Jazeera said it had contacted the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs but had not received a response.
The war between the Houthis and Yemen's internationally recognized government, backed by Saudi Arabia, has been under a 2022 truce that recent attacks have strained, Al Jazeera reported. The Houthis last month also declared a Red Sea blockade of Saudi Arabia, threatening shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb strait.