Yemeni Rebel Attack Sets Saudi Oil Plant On Fire

BEIRUT, Lebanon — An attack on an oil storage facility in Saudi Arabia on Friday by Houthi rebels in Yemen ignited a massive fire that filled the sky with black smoke over the port city of Jeddah on the first day of a war. Formula 1 car racing It aims to attract an international audience.

A spokesman for the Saudi coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen described the strike as an “aggressive escalation” aimed at disrupting oil markets and hurting the world economy.

The Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they also targeted other oil facilities in Saudi Arabia with their drones and cruise missiles.

Saudi Arabian state news media reported on some of these attempts, but only the attack in Jeddah appeared to have caused serious damage.

The attacks were the last attempt by the Houthis to inflict economic damage on Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, after seven years of crushing war in neighboring Yemen.

Receiving military and financial aid from Iran, the Saudi’s regional enemy, the Houthis captured the Yemeni capital of Sana’a in 2014, driving the Yemeni government into exile and encouraging military intervention by Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries aimed at restoring the country. Yemeni government.

The war has reached a stalemate as it has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with malnutrition, poverty and diseases such as cholera affecting large numbers of Yemenis.

Brig. General Turki al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition, said the attack hit a fuel distribution station in Jeddah owned by Saudi Aramco, the Saudi state oil monopoly.

General al-Maliki added that the attack set two storage tanks on fire, no one was injured and the flames were brought under control.

one fireball rising from storage tanks and black smoke covering the sky spread on social media, spooking oil markets that were already strained by the uncertainty caused by the war in Ukraine. Oil briefly climbed above $120 a barrel before falling slightly.

Drone and missile attacks from Yemen to Saudi Arabia have become commonplace in recent years, and while many do not do much harm, some do and others hurt the kingdom’s efforts to sell itself as a safe place for foreign investors, businessmen and tourists.

Friday’s attack coincided with the opening of the Formula 1 event, which was scheduled to run until Sunday. The attack was close enough to the venue that smoke was clearly visible from the track where practice runs were held for Saturday’s races.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader, has forced such events to come to Saudi Arabia as part of his broader plans to open up the country and diversify its oil-based economy.

Prince Mohammed, who also serves as the kingdom’s defense minister, was also the architect of the country’s military intervention in Yemen in 2015, which Saudi officials told their American counterparts would take only a few weeks.

In January, the Houthis carried out an operation. A similar attack on the United Arab EmiratesIn the war in Yemen, a Saudi ally blew up oil tankers and killed three. Analysts said the rare attack on a country that does not share a border with Yemen suggests that the reach and capabilities of the Houthis have increased.

An attack claimed by the Houthis in September 2019 damaged key oil processing plants In eastern Saudi Arabia, it takes them offline temporarily.

The increasing complexity of the attacks has led Gulf officials and military analysts to accuse Iran of either training and equipping its Yemeni allies to carry out attacks or launching itself while using it to cover up the Houthis.