ATHENS/WASHINGTON: Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi militants fired on Saudi oil installations in two ports on the Red Sea coast on Saturday, but the United States held back from launching air strikes on Iran itself for the first night in two weeks.
There was no immediate explanation from Washington of why it had abruptly halted a streak of 13 nights of escalating strikes since an interim deal to end hostilities collapsed, in retaliation for Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
“It seems that our dear Iran had a peaceful night last night,” Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour said on X.
After the quiet night in Iran, there were also no reports on Saturday of attacks from Iran on its Gulf neighbours, which have also been taking place daily in response to the US attacks.
However, the strikes from Iran’s Houthi allies on Saudi Arabia were a sign that the war that has disrupted energy supplies from the Gulf could be spreading to a second major shipping route, and reigniting Yemen’s own civil war.
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group had successfully struck sites belonging to Saudi state oil giant Aramco in Jizan and Yanbu. Video shared on social media and verified by Reuters showed a large column of smoke rising from the direction of the Aramco refinery in Jizan.
Two Asia-based trading sources said that they had been informed of potential damage to fuel and oil storage sites at Jizan. Aramco did not respond to requests for comment.
In Yanbu, two ballistic missiles aimed at oil installations were intercepted by a US-made Patriot battery operated in Saudi Arabia by the Greek military under an agreement with Riyadh, Greek security sources said.
Yanbu is Saudi Arabia’s main Red Sea oil port, where millions of barrels a day are loaded, and has become the main route out for Saudi oil skirting the Strait of Hormuz, which has been blockaded by Iran. Jizan, on the Red Sea close to the Yemeni border, is the site of a refinery with a capacity of 400,000 barrels per day.
In Yemen, the air force of the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government, which has opposed the Houthis for more than a decade, struck Houthi missile and drone launch sites and arms depots in the Marib and al-Jawf provinces, Yemeni officials said.
Earlier, the Saudi-led military alliance said it had bombed Houthi military positions on Friday in the Red Sea port of Hodeidah.
The Yemeni officials said both sides in Yemen’s civil war were mobilising forces along the front.
Saudi Arabia has led an Arab coalition battling against the Houthis for more than a decade since the Iran-aligned fighters captured Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.
The Yemeni civil war, during which hundreds of thousands of people died from fighting and famine, has been paused under a ceasefire since 2022. But that truce broke down this month, with the Houthis effectively joining the wider war their Iranian allies have waged since being attacked by the US and Israel.
The Houthis have declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia over the past week, and Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said all Saudi oil facilities could be targets.
The move has contributed in recent days to one of the war’s sharpest rises in global oil prices, with Brent crude spiking above $100 a barrel for the first time since May.
US President Donald Trump on Friday vowed “major military punishment” for Tehran and the Houthis after the Houthis struck two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea.
An interim truce meant to end the war effectively collapsed two weeks ago, with US forces striking targets in southern Iran in response to Iranian disruption of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump has threatened in recent days to widen the range of targets to include Iran’s energy plants and bridges, send ground forces to seize its oil hub of Kharg Island, and bomb a deep-underground nuclear-linked site known as Pickaxe Mountain.
On Friday, however, Trump said he had not yet made a decision on new major strikes.
“We are talking to them,” he told reporters at the White House. “I think they’re being serious. I think … they are being by far the most serious that we’ve seen them, but that doesn’t mean we get there.”—Reuters
AFP adds: Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they had launched missile and drone salvos against Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities on Saturday, as fighting between regional allies of the United States and Iran intensified on a new front.
In a video statement, military spokesman Yahya Saree said the rebels targeted sites operated by the Saudi oil giant Aramco in Jizan and Yanbu, threatening to expand the group’s response if attacked by the Gulf monarchy.
Earlier, the rebels’ media had said a strike on Jizan had sparked fires. A video circulating on social media, and verified by AFP, showed dark clouds rising above a refinery belonging to Aramco in the city.
Saudi Arabia made no direct comment on the attack but the kingdom’s civil defence issued warnings for Jizan, on the kingdom’s southwest coast, as well as in Yanbu to the north.
A surface-to-air battery operated by Greek personnel in Saudi Arabia downed two ballistic missiles and later a drone launched from Yemen targeting Yanbu on Saturday morning, the Greek air force press office said.
The Iran-backed group had accused US ally Saudi Arabia of a “dangerous escalation” after Riyadh struck Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday.
A Yemeni security source told AFP a naval base in the port city of Hodeida and a military camp on Kamaran Island were among the Saudi targets.
The renewed exchange of fire between the US and Iranian allies signals the emergence of a new front in the Middle East war following US and Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February.
Faiza, a 36-year-old mother of two and Hodeida resident, told AFP the strikes were like “the sound of loud thunder”, explaining she had heard three distinct explosions. “I didn’t want to believe that we had gone back to strikes,” she added.
Yemen’s Houthis have been at war with the internationally recognised, Saudi-backed government since 2015, in a devastating conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands and triggered a major humanitarian crisis. However, fighting in the poverty-stricken Arabian peninsula country had been largely frozen since a UN-negotiated truce in 2022.
This week the Houthis announced a maritime blockade of the top oil exporter, hitting Saudi tankers in the Red Sea. The threat to shipping comes in parallel to Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has become the central flash point between Tehran and Washington amid renewed hostilities between the two sides.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday their forces stopped four ships attempting to transit the strategic chokepoint over the past 24 hours. A fresh incident involving a tanker and unspecified military forces was reported on Saturday near the Strait of Hormuz, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations monitor.
The US did not announce strikes on Iran, a first after 13 nights of consecutive bombardments.
US President Donald Trump said he had not yet decided whether to launch major strikes on Iran, hours before the escalation between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, because Tehran was now getting “serious” in talks with Washington.
“No, I haven’t,” Trump told journalists in the Oval Office when asked if he had made a decision on hitting Iran hard.
“Look, we’re talking to them right now. I think they’re getting more and more serious as the days go by, for maybe the obvious reason.”
Trump said Iran had a choice between making a deal or facing a “much higher level” of strikes, after nearly two weeks of US attacks that have left an April ceasefire in tatters.
The war that Trump once predicted would last four or five weeks is now nearing its fifth month, and is weighing on the Republican’s approval ratings ahead of crucial US midterm elections in November.
Trump added that he did not know what the “tipping point” would be for a decision, but reiterated that his red line would be if Iran was close to developing a nuclear weapon.
The United States says it is carrying out the strikes to stop Iran closing the crucial Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has responded with strikes on US bases that have killed four service members.
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