DUBAI — Yemen's Houthi movement said on Thursday that it had attacked three of Saudi Arabia's most important oil targets: a pumping station on the East-West pipeline, an oil facility in the Red Sea city of Yanbu, and an Aramco site in the capital, Riyadh.
Almost none of it could be confirmed. Saudi Arabia did not respond to the claims, the Houthis offered no evidence of damage, and they did not say on which day the attacks were supposed to have taken place. The only attacks Saudi Arabia confirmed on Thursday were two Houthi drones that its air defences said they shot down. The claims came on the same day the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to extend sanctions on Yemen for another year and demanded that the Houthis stop attacking Saudi Arabia.
What the Houthis claimed
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said in statements posted on social media that a drone targeted Pumping Station No. 7 on the East-West pipeline and that a ballistic missile targeted an oil facility in Yanbu, the port city where the pipeline ends. He said another drone targeted an Aramco facility in Riyadh. Sarea said the operations had achieved their objectives. He gave no details of any damage and offered no photos or other proof.
The claims were wider than the three oil targets. Sarea also said a drone targeted a military cargo plane at Sharurah airport, near the border with Yemen, and that a ballistic missile scored a direct hit on the Khamis Mushait air base in the south of the kingdom. Houthi statements put the full round at twelve operations, six of them missile strikes against Saudi troops deployed inside Yemen. None of those claims has been confirmed either.
What Saudi Arabia confirmed
The Saudi led coalition said later on Thursday that it had intercepted and destroyed two drones launched by the Houthis, one in the Riyadh region and one in the Eastern Province, where most of Saudi Arabia's oil is produced. Coalition spokesperson Major General Turki al-Maliki announced the interceptions in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency. The coalition said nothing about the pipeline, Yanbu or the Aramco site, and neither the Saudi energy ministry nor Aramco has confirmed any damage to its facilities.
The Mecca dispute
Sarea also rejected a Saudi claim from the day before. Saudi Arabia said its air defences destroyed two ballistic missiles on Wednesday and that debris fell in the Mecca region, including in the village of Sabuhah. Sarea said the group had not targeted Mecca and called the Saudi account a "grave falsehood." The Houthis have repeatedly denied aiming at Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam, when Saudi Arabia has accused them of doing so before.
Why the pipeline matters
The East-West pipeline, also called Petroline, runs about 1,200 kilometres from the Abqaiq processing centre in the Eastern Province to Yanbu on the Red Sea. It was built so that Saudi crude oil could reach the sea without passing through the Strait of Hormuz. That is exactly how Saudi Arabia is using it now. With the war disrupting shipping through the strait, Riyadh says it has rerouted about 4 million barrels of crude a day through the pipeline to Yanbu, about 4 percent of global supply. The line was built to carry about 5 million barrels a day, and Aramco says upgrades have lifted its capacity to about 7 million barrels a day. The pipeline has been hit before: an attack in September forced Saudi Arabia to close it for about 11 days while crews made repairs.
On Monday of this week, Saudi Arabia said the pipeline was targeted in the Madinah region, in an attack that caused a small fire that was put out, hurt no one and did not stop operations; the kingdom named no attacker for that strike.
The sanctions vote
In New York on Thursday, the Security Council adopted Resolution 2837, a text written by the United Kingdom, with all 15 members voting in favour. The resolution extends the asset freezes and travel bans on listed Yemenis until November 14, 2027, and extends the mandate of the United Nations Panel of Experts, which monitors the sanctions, until December 15, 2027. The panel will grow to six members and will include experts on maritime security. The Council condemned the Houthis' military escalation and their attacks on Saudi Arabia and on commercial shipping, and demanded that the group stop its attacks at once and without conditions. The resolution also takes aim at the parts and chemicals used to build drones and missiles, and the Council said it would decide by January 11, 2027 whether to add measures covering them. The arms embargo on the Houthis was not part of the vote. It has been open ended since 2015 and does not expire.
Inside Yemen, fighting between the Houthis and government forces has also grown heavier in recent days in the south of the country, near the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
Reporting note: This story is based on reporting by Reuters, Xinhua and Al Jazeera on the statements of Houthi spokesperson Yahya Sarea and coalition spokesperson Turki al-Maliki, on analysis by the Institute for the Study of War, and on United Nations meeting coverage of the Security Council vote. The Houthi claims of hits on the pipeline, on Yanbu and on Riyadh could not be independently verified, and Saudi Arabia had not confirmed any damage when this story was written. The Houthis did not say on which day the claimed attacks took place.
