Houthi rebels say they attacked Saudi oil facility

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they attacked a Saudi oil facility in the port city of Jiddah on Thursday, the latest in a series of crossborder missile and drone strikes the group has claimed against the kingdom amid the grinding war in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia’s stateowned media did not immediately acknowledge any incident in Jiddah. But overnight, the military coalition the Saudis are leading against the rebels announced that the Houthis had fired two explosivesladen drones toward Khamis Mushait, a southwestern city home to the King Khalid Air Base, and later a ballistic missile toward the southern province of Jizan. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Brig. Gen. Yehia Sarie, a Houthi military spokesman, tweeted that the rebels fired a new Quds2 cruise missile at the facility. He posted a satellite image online that matched Aramco’s North Jiddah Bulk Plant, where oil products are stored in tanks. The Iranbacked rebels claimed they hit the same facility last November, an attack the Saudiled coalition later acknowledged had ignited a fire at the plant.

While such attacks rarely cause damage or casualties, strikes on major oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, have shaken energy markets and the world economy.

The Jiddah plant, which serves as a temporary storage facility for gasoline, diesel and other petrochemicals before distribution, sits just southeast of the city’s King Abdulaziz International Airport, a major airfield that handles Muslim pilgrims heading to Mecca.

Flights coming into the airport diverted or otherwise flew in circles Thursday morning without explanation, according to tracking data from website FlightRadar24.com.

The conflict in Yemen erupted nearly six years ago, after the Houthis swept into the capital and seized much of the country’s north. A Saudiled military coalition launched a bombing campaign to dislodge the Houthis and restore the internationally recognized government.

Now mired in stalemate, the war has killed more than 12,000 civilians, pushed millions to the brink of famine and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Saudi Arabia has faced widespread international criticism for its airstrikes that have killed civilians and hit nonmilitary targets in Yemen.