Powerful blasts rattled Riyadh after a Houthi strike hit an Aramco building in Dhahran, marking a fresh escalation in the Saudi-Yemen conflict.
RIYADH: Powerful explosions rattled the Saudi capital Wednesday, hours after a Houthi strike hit a building in the area housing energy giant Aramco’s operations centre, in a fresh escalation of the war between the kingdom and the Yemeni group.
Regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia unleashed salvos against the Houthi stronghold in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, while the Iran-backed group fired back at sites across the kingdom, which is the world’s top crude oil exporter.
Most strikes on Saudi Arabia have targeted infrastructure on the outskirts of the capital, but the barrages appear to be getting closer to the city centre.
On Wednesday the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis said it had intercepted a missile fired by the group towards Riyadh.
In the city’s downtown, residents have been seen parking their cars to stop and look up at the sky, an AFP journalist said.
On Tuesday night, the white plumes of air defence missiles could be seen streaking across the sky followed by explosions.
While walking down a major avenue, a witness told AFP he “saw a projectile cutting across the sky” above a mall, saying it left “a yellowish trail of light followed by a trail of smoke. Then, we heard an explosion”.
“People were calm; no one was speaking. We were scared and all looking up at the sky,” he added, requesting anonymity.
More blasts were heard on Wednesday, AFP journalists in Riyadh reported, as messages were received on phones warning of an “aerial threat” and urging people to take shelter.
The alert was lifted a few minutes later.
A Saudi energy ministry official said a building belonging to Aramco in Dhahran was struck on Tuesday, resulting in a “limited fire” but “no casualties or fatalities”.
Dhahran is home to Aramco’s headquarters, a vast complex comprising several buildings and residential compounds.
Strikes on Yemen
In Riyadh, the civil defence agency said four people — two women, a man and a child — were wounded by debris from two intercepted Houthi cruise missiles and that 15 homes were damaged.
The Saudi-led coalition meanwhile struck oil sites across western Yemen, with spokesman Turki Al-Malki saying the attacks targeted facilities used to supply the Houthis’ effort to “threaten the kingdom, Yemen, the southern Red Sea and waterways”.
An AFP correspondent in Sanaa reported an explosion, while a breaking news alert on the Houthi-affiliated Al-Masirah TV channel said “Saudi aggression” targeted an oil firm.
The coalition has supported Yemen’s government militarily against the Houthis since 2015 in a long-running civil war that has created a humanitarian crisis.
Many civilians in the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital, fearing shortages, have rushed to queue in front of fuel stations, an AFP journalist said.
Renewed threats
The escalation in violence follows a strike on Riyadh’s international airport on Saturday that left 13 people dead and operations suspended in the worst attack on the kingdom since 2015.
The Saudi cabinet vowed in a meeting led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that it “will not allow its security or freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait to be threatened”.
Many countries have issued travel warnings to their citizens in Saudi Arabia, with France telling its nationals on Tuesday to avoid Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam airports.
Traffic in perennially gridlocked Riyadh was noticeably lighter this week as remote learning for all schools and work-from-home orders for some companies took effect, according to AFP journalists.
Saudi Arabia faces a major economic contraction this year, with GDP expected to shrink 3.3 percent, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday, predicting a regional drop over Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
The kingdom was already facing headwinds from Iran’s chokehold on Hormuz since the start of the Middle East war in February, when the US and Israel attacked Iran.
But the restart in July of Yemen’s frozen war has further roiled the kingdom and brought the fight to its own soil.
Houthi attacks have also targeted oil tankers in the Red Sea — Saudi Arabia’s alternative export route.
‘Behaving very badly’
The Riyadh airport attack had prompted US President Donald Trump to say he was considering joining Saudi strikes against the Houthis.
He wrote on his Truth Social platform that “the Houthis are behaving very badly”, accusing them of acting “probably at the behest of Iran”.
“I’ll be there after the elections, and I will never forget!” he wrote, referring to next month’s midterms.
The Houthis warned the US against intervention, with political bureau member Mohammed Al Bukhaiti telling AFP they would target American interests in the region.
Bukhaiti said the purpose of the campaign against Saudi targets was to send a message to the crown prince “that he can no longer wage aggression against Yemen from a safe position”.