RIYADH: Yemen’s Houthis said they fired missiles at Saudi Arabia’s biggest oil refinery and its defence ministry on Tuesday as the group kept up its weeks-long wave of attacks.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s top exporter of crude, has suffered constant Houthi strikes against oil and civilian sites this month, including Riyadh’s international airport.
The Houthis said they attacked the defence ministry in Riyadh and the Ras Tanura refinery on the east coast among a series of attacks across the sprawling desert kingdom on Tuesday.
“Our armed forces targeted the Ministry of Defence in the enemy Saudi capital, Riyadh, with a ballistic missile and the hit was direct,” Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said.
The Houthis were also “able to target the Ras Tanura refinery in the Eastern Province with a ballistic missile”, he said in a separate post.
Saudi authorities did not comment on specific targets, but said they shot down missiles over Riyadh and the Eastern Province.
AFP correspondents in Riyadh heard explosions on Tuesday. A text message alert warned residents to seek shelter, while blasts rattled windows in the city centre.
Saudi authorities said they shot down two ballistic missiles launched towards the capital, with shrapnel hitting a building, a construction project and a car.
Three Houthi missiles fired towards Eastern Province were also intercepted, the Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthis said.
‘Very loud bang’
A resident in the city of Al Khobar, south of the Ras Tanura complex, told AFP he heard explosions around dawn.
“We got the alert on the mobile and then heard a very loud bang,” the resident said.
Maritime security agency Vanguard said a fire was reported in the Ras Tanura area in the early hours of Tuesday after an attack. The blaze had been contained, it said.
The Ras Tanura facility along Saudi Arabia’s Gulf coast is home to one of the Middle East’s largest refineries and is a cornerstone of the kingdom’s energy sector.
The complex, with a capacity of 550,000 barrels per day, has been repeatedly targeted by strikes blamed on Iran, including a March drone attack that forced a partial shutdown of the refinery.
Also on Tuesday, the Houthis said they had launched ballistic missiles at two military transport aircraft in southern Saudi Arabia, while also firing a drone at Abha airport.
As the attacks continued, 97 fighters were killed in southwestern Yemen, where Saudi-backed government forces are trying to recapture territory lost to the Houthis last month.
At least 63 Houthi fighters and 34 pro-government combatants have died, mostly near the Bab al-Mandab strait, the Red Sea’s strategic southern chokepoint, according to an AFP tally compiled from military sources on both sides.
The clashes, which began with Saudi airstrikes late on Monday, are the fiercest since the Houthis seized swathes of territory in a lightning offensive in September.
Egypt ‘declared war’
Separately, the Houthis slammed the Egyptian parliament’s decision to authorise defensive military support for Saudi Arabia, saying it amounted to a declaration of war.
“It is truly remarkable that while these people go to discuss what they call ‘peace in the region’, Egypt and its parliament declare support for the so-called defence of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and in doing so, declare war against the Republic of Yemen,” said Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a member of the Houthis’ political bureau, in a Telegram post.
Parliament authorised the measure on Monday. It was not clear exactly what support was on offer from Egypt, which has the Arab world’s largest military.
Al-Houthi’s statement also pointed to Monday’s visit to Tehran by the Saudi defence minister, Pakistan’s army chief and Turkey’s intelligence chief, in a bid to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East war.
Al-Houthi said the group was “not afraid of any alliance that may be formed”.
Riyadh, Ankara and Islamabad recently signed a NATO-style defence pact in Makkah, pledging to consider an attack on one country as an attack on all three.
Yemen’s largely dormant conflict reignited in July, further destabilising the region months into the Middle East war that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February.
The Houthis declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and began hitting its ships, territory and oil facilities.
The Houthis have in turn reported frequent Saudi strikes. Late on Tuesday, Saree said Saudi jets had carried out 81 airstrikes in the previous 24 hours.
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