DUBAI – Yemeni Houthi forces attacked a large oil facility in the city of Jizan in southern Saudi Arabia in overnight drone and missile attacks, a Houthi military spokesman said on Monday.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis previously said it had intercepted and destroyed four missiles and six Houthi-fired explosive drones on the border into Saudi Arabia.
There was no Saudi confirmation of where they were intercepted or if something was hit.
The Saudi Aramco oil company operates a 400,000 barrel a day refinery in the Red Sea city of Jizan, which is located about 60 km (40 miles) from the border with Yemen. Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“With many drones, our armed forces attacked military aircraft, pilot accommodation and Patriot systems in Khamis Mushait, and other military targets at the airports of Abha, Jizan and Najran,” said Yahya Sarea, a Houthi military spokesman.
“Also, the giant oil facility in the Jizan industrial zone. The strike was precise.”
Khamis Mushait, Abha, Jizan and Najran are located in the southwest of Saudi Arabia, near the border with Yemen.
Cross-border attacks by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement have intensified since the end of May when a truce caused by the coronavirus pandemic expired. In late June, the missiles hit the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
The coalition, in a statement released by the Saudi state news agency SPA, did not say where the objects were intercepted, but said the drones had been launched from the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa toward Saudi Arabia.
The coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 after the Houthis expelled the internationally recognized and Saudi-backed government of Sanaa in late 2014.
The Houthis, who control most of the large urban centers, say they are fighting a corrupt system.
Houthi-run news outlet Al Masirah said the coalition had carried out air strikes in several regions under Houthi control on Monday.
The United Nations has launched virtual talks between the warring parties on a permanent ceasefire and confidence-building measures to restart the peace negotiations.
But the discussions have been complicated by increased violence since the ceasefire expired.
The war killed more than 100,000 people and caused what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
