Yemen’s Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, launched attacks on Sunday targeting both an oil refinery inside Saudi Arabia and Saudi-backed forces in the Yemeni port city of Mocha.
Ansar Allah military spokesman Yahya Saree said early Sunday that a Saudi Aramco facility in Jizan, a Red Sea port city in southern Saudi Arabia, was targeted with a drone, an attack he said was a response to Saudi drones flying in northern Yemeni provinces. Local officials reported a fire at the facility and said it was extinguished with no casualties.
The strike on the oil facility came two days after Saudi Arabia signed a new defense pact with Pakistan and Turkey, which includes a NATO-style security guarantee that says an attack on one will be considered an attack on all, though the details of what that means still need to be worked out.
Later in the day, Saree announced a drone and missile attack against what he called the “Saudi enemy’s mobilizations and weapons depots” in Mocha, which is under the control of the Saudi and Western-backed Yemeni government, whose leadership is based in Riyadh.
Saree said the attack was in response to “continued mobilization by the Saudi enemy of its tools, reinforcing them with weapons and equipment, and its ongoing assaults in the western coastal region and Taiz Governorate.”
He claimed that the strikes “resulted in widespread destruction of that equipment and weaponry, as well as the killing and wounding of dozens, including Saudis.” A medical source in Mocha told AFP that the strike killed 11 people, including eight soldiers and three civilians.
The strikes on Mocha came a few days after Ansar Allah launched attacks in central Yemen targeting the Emergency Forces, a military unit recently created by Saudi Arabia that operates under the control of the Saudi military. That attack killed at least 35 fighters.
Ansar Allah has also continued strikes on Saudi tankers as it continues to enforce a maritime blockade it imposed following Saudi airstrikes on the Sanaa International Airport, which Riyadh carried out to prevent the landing of a plane from Iran. The plane, which ended up landing in Yemen’s Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, was carrying a Yemeni delegation that attended the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and US and Saudi officials have claimed it was also carrying weapons and IRGC advisors.
President Trump reportedly gave Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman the green light for the strikes on the Sanaa airport, which reignited the conflict between the Saudis and the Houthis after a ceasefire had held relatively well since 2022.
