Yemen’s Ansar Allah, known as the Houthis, took credit on Monday for attacks targeting oil infrastructure in eastern Saudi Arabia while Riyadh blamed the incident on Iraq’s Shia militias.
Ansar Allah military spokesman Yahya Saree said that “a number of sensitive sites and points related to the supply and transport of crude oil from eastern Saudi Arabia to Yanbu were targeted by a number of drones in response to the Saudi enemy’s drone incursions into Yemeni airspace.”
The statement came a day after Ansar Allah downed a Turkish-made Bayraktar drone that it said was being operated by Saudi Arabia in Yemen’s northern al-Jawf province.
For its part, Saudi Arabia said that its forces intercepted and destroyed multiple drones launched from Iraq and hasn’t commented on the Ansar Allah statement. “These terrorist attempts were launched from Iraqi territory and executed by Iranian-affiliated terrorist militias,” the Saudi Defense Ministry said.
The Saudi ministry said that there were attacks in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province and in Riyadh Province. According to The New York Times, satellite images show smoke rising from an oil facility in Abqaiq, in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, which is far from Yemen but not out of range of Ansar Allah’s missiles and drones. Israel and Jordan also reported shooting down drones on Monday, but it’s unclear where they were launched from.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of Shia militias, released a statement denying the Saudi allegations. “The Saudi fabrications are an attempt to justify its inability to respond to the painful Yemeni strikes that reached deep into their infrastructure, out of fear of the nature of the impending Yemeni response,” the group said, according to Yemen’s Al Masirah TV.
The flare-up between Ansar Allah and Saudi Arabia began on July 13, when the Saudis bombed the Sanaa international airport in Yemen to prevent a plane from landing that took off from Iran and was carrying a Yemeni delegation who attended the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, shattering a fragile truce that had held relatively well since April 2022. In response, Ansar Allah fired missiles and drones into Saudi Arabia and announced a maritime blockade on the country, calling it a “blockade for a blockade.”
