Saudi Arabia faces drone and missile attack on oil facilities

A drone struck a Saudi oil port and a ballistic missile targeted facilities of energy giant Aramco in the country’s east on Sunday, the energy ministry said.

“One of the petroleum tank areas at the Ras Tanura Port in the Eastern Region, one of the largest oil ports in the world, was attacked this morning by a drone, coming from the sea,” the ministry said in a statement.

Later Sunday, “shrapnel from a ballistic missile fell near Saudi Aramco’s residential area in the city of Dhahran, where thousands of the company’s employees and their families from different nationalities live,” the ministry added.

The attacks did not result in any casualties or damage, the ministry added, without stating who was behind them.

But Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed on Twitter they fired drones and missiles at Ras Tanura and military targets in the area of Dammam, which is close to Dhahran.

Earlier on Sunday, the Saudi-led military coalition mounted air strikes on Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa after intercepting a flurry of drones and missiles launched by the Iran-backed rebels, SPA reported.

The developments marked a new escalation in Yemen’s six-year conflict between the coalition-backed Yemeni government and the Huthi insurgents, despite a renewed US push to end the hostilities.