King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. Photo: liton islam, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Yemen's Houthis said on Friday that they had launched fresh drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, including a strike on the airport in the capital, Riyadh, and two drones aimed at a pumping station on the kingdom's East-West oil pipeline.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said one drone had targeted King Khalid International Airport, while two others had struck Pumping Station No. 3 along the East-West pipeline east of Riyadh. He claimed both operations had achieved their objectives.
The claims, carried by the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV, have not been independently verified, and Saudi authorities had not commented on them as of Saturday morning. No photos or other evidence of damage to the airport or the pipeline were published with the claims.
A second day of claimed strikes
The new claims came a day after the Houthis announced a separate round of attacks on Thursday, when they said they had hit Pumping Station No. 7 on the same pipeline, an oil facility in the Red Sea port city of Yanbu and an Aramco building in Riyadh.
The Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthis said on Thursday that it had intercepted and destroyed two Houthi drones, one in the Riyadh region and another in the kingdom's oil-rich Eastern Province. Neither the Saudi energy ministry nor Aramco has confirmed any damage to its facilities from either round of claimed attacks.
In a separate statement on Friday, the Houthis also said they had fired two ballistic missiles at concentrations of Saudi forces in Al-Tuwal in Jazan province, in southern Saudi Arabia near the Yemeni border. The claim came hours after Saudi civil defence issued an all-clear for the province, and it was not immediately clear whether the two events were connected.
Houthis say escalation is continuing
The group's spokesman said on Saturday that the escalation was continuing, describing the latest round as the 24th operation in about three days. In Yemen, the Houthis said they had targeted government forces' positions in the southern governorate of Lahj and in al-Jawf in the north, and claimed a weapons depot at the Ras Abbas military camp in the southern port city of Aden had been completely destroyed.
They also said they had carried out strikes on the Jabal Hadid camp in Aden, where they said Saudi officers were meeting, and reported three operations inside Saudi Arabia, including the airport and pipeline strikes and attacks on Saudi forces in the Jizan region.
The Houthis said 85 air raids and missile strikes had hit six Yemeni governorates over the past day. Those claims, like the claims of successful strikes inside Saudi Arabia, could not be independently verified.
A war spreading across the Gulf
The attacks on Saudi Arabia are part of a wider regional conflict that has spread far beyond Yemen. The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, have repeatedly targeted Saudi oil facilities, airports and military installations in recent weeks, while fighting between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces has intensified inside Yemen, including a siege of the city of Taiz.
The East-West pipeline has become increasingly important to Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude exporter. It connects the kingdom's eastern oil-producing regions with the Red Sea port of Yanbu, allowing oil to reach market without depending entirely on the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has sought to restrict shipping since the war with the United States and Israel began in late February.
On Monday, Saudi Arabia said an attack on the pipeline had sparked a fire but had not affected operations. The Houthis have targeted the conduit repeatedly in recent weeks.
The claims add another front to a conflict that already spans the Gulf. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Friday that they had targeted a US early-warning radar facility in Bahrain, a claim the United States denied, while Iran's military said more tankers had been hit by mines in the Strait of Hormuz.
For now, the scale of any damage in Saudi Arabia remains unclear, and with the Houthis claiming success and Riyadh silent, the full picture may take days to emerge.
Sources: Reuters; Al Jazeera; The Jerusalem Post; Iran International.