Hostilities between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthi rebels widened Tuesday, in an exchange that damaged oil facilities in Yemen, while explosions were reported near Saudi oil giant Aramco’s headquarters in Dhahran. Fighting also continued between the Houthis and Yemeni government forces around the city of Taiz.
Saudi warplanes struck the al-Sabaha central station on Tuesday, an oil storage and distribution facility operated by the Yemen Oil Company in Bani Matar, west of the capital Sanaa.
Reuters, citing sources, reported loud explosions near Aramco’s headquarters in Dhahran.
A statement from the Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen’s government said the Houthis had used the al-Sabaha facility to supply missiles they fired at the kingdom, threatening the safety of ports, airports and ships in the Red Sea.
The strike followed a warning from the coalition’s joint forces command urging civilians to evacuate the site.
Houthi-affiliated media also reported airstrikes on Yemen Oil Company fuel-storage facilities at Ras Isa, in the al-Salif district of Hodeidah on the Red Sea coast.
Reuters quoted a source as saying a fire had broken out at Aramco’s headquarters. Four sources said an order had been issued to evacuate the building.
Aramco did not immediately comment or confirm the reports.
Houthi-affiliated media had earlier published coordinates for the Saudi capital’s King Khalid International Airport, the Riyadh refinery and Aramco facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia, urging their evacuation as sites the group intended to attack.
The developments came after a sharp increase in Houthi attacks on Saudi airports and critical infrastructure in recent days. Houthi shelling halted operations at King Khalid International Airport after deaths were reported there.
Representatives of the Houthi group, which the United States designates as a terrorist organization, said its attacks were in response to a previous strike on Sanaa airport.
In his latest comment on the escalating exchanges, U.S. President Donald Trump accused the Houthis on Tuesday of resuming attacks at Iran’s instigation, in an effort to deliberately drive-up oil prices ahead of the U.S. congressional midterm elections on November 3.
Trump said the Houthi fighters were behaving “very badly”, and in a Truth Social post wrote that he would still be in office after the elections and would “never forget” it.
Yemen’s state television aired an address Tuesday by President Rashad al-Alimi, who expressed solidarity with Saudi Arabia in the face of Houthi attacks, as fighting rages on several fronts, particularly in Taiz in the country’s southwest and along the western coast, where Houthis have taken control of all the main and secondary roads leading into the city.
In his address, following the October 5 launch of Operation Yemen Dawn to retake Sanaa, al-Alimi urged Taiz residents to hold on and said he had instructed government forces to break the siege and reopen the roads into the city
As the Houthis intensified their push to capture the city to which they had laid siege for nearly a decade, Yemeni government forces claimed to have retaken al-Sarari, southeast of Taiz. Artillery fire was exchanged on the al-Dhabab and Jabal Habashi fronts to the west, while clashes continued in al-Misrakh, al-Aqroudh and al-Shaqab, south of the city.
Col. Abdul Basit al-Bahr, deputy head of moral guidance for government forces in the Taiz military axis, said the Houthis control the heights surrounding Taiz, from where they shell the city around the clock.
In comments to MBN, Al-Bahr said the Giants Brigades, allied with government forces, still controlled Dhubab airport south of Taiz, noting that Houthi “pockets” remained on Mayyun Island and that fighting continued in al-Wazi’iyah.
Al-Bahr said Saudi strikes on energy facilities used by the Houthis would affect their ability to operate vehicles and supply front-line forces.
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
