Yemen’s Houthi rebel group has claimed the responsibility for a missile strike at the Saudi oil complex in Jeddah, reports AP. Confirming the attack, Saudi energy ministry said that a missile hit the facility which resulted in a fire. But it was quickly extinguished and there was no loss of life nor disruption to operations, he said.
Videos supposedly of the missile attack were doing rounds on social media, before the Saudi government officially acknowledged the attack. The missile struck a fuel tank at around 3:50 a.m. (GMT+3) the Aramco’s Jeddah distribution station and ignited a fire. The Saudi energy ministry called the action a terrorist attack.
A drone strike on Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refinery by Yemeni forces in September 2019 had cut oil production in half.
According to the Houthi-controlled Saba news agency, Houthi armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the missile launch came ahead of planned “large-scale operations in Saudi Arabia” and warned “citizens and foreign companies operating in Saudi Arabia to stay away from important vital installations”.
A unverified Twitter account of Brigadier General Yahya Saree tweeted “With God’s help and support, the missile force was able to target the Aramco distribution station in Jeddah with a winged missile, Quds 2, which entered service recently after successful operational experiments in the Saudi depth, which have not been announced yet. Thanks to God, the injury was very accurate, and ambulances and firefighting vehicles rushed to the targeted place.”
Col. Turki al-Maliki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, blamed the rebels for what he called “a cowardly attack which not only targets the kingdom, but also targets the nerve center of the world’s energy supply and the security of the global economy”, reports AP.
Jon Gambrell of AP tweeted that the updated satellite photo by Planet Labs annotated by Tanker Trackers shows signs of a fire at a bulk plant.
The attack comes just after a visit by outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the kingdom to see Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The meeting held in secret reportedly included Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Saudi also just hosted the annual G-20 summit, which concluded on Sunday.
The Houthi insurgency in Yemen, also known as the Houthi rebellion, is a military rebellion pitting Zaidi Shia Houthis against the Yemeni military that began in Northern Yemen in 2004 and has since escalated into a full-scale civil war. Though most of the fighting took place in Sa’dah Governorate in north-western Yemen, some of the fighting spread to neighbouring governorates Hajjah, ‘Amran, al-Jawf and the Saudi province of Jizan in later years.
After the Houthi takeover of the capital city Sana’a in late 2014, the insurgency became a full-blown civil war with a major Saudi-led intervention in Yemen beginning in March 2015. The conflict took on an international dimension on 4 November 2009 when the Houthis attacked the Saudi border, killed one of the Saudi border guards, seized Al Khubah Village and other villages. The Houthis accuse Saudi Arabia of supporting the Yemeni government in attacks against them. It was not clear what type of support they meant. The Saudi government denied this.
Saudi led alliance has been hunting Yemen rebels. Since then, the Yemen rebels have repeatedly attacked Saudi oil facilities with missiles and drones.
Shobhil Shrivastava 
Aayush Pal