West Asia conflict: Yemen's Houthis carry out drone attacks on Saudi airport, Aramco facility

As hostilities intensify in and around Yemen, the country’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said on Thursday that they had targeted an airport and a facility belonging to state-owned oil giant Aramco in Saudi Arabia’s southern Najran region, near the Yemeni border, AFP reported.

The claim came as tensions rose further across the region. Earlier on Thursday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned that Saudi Arabia would be “unable to contain” the Houthis as the rebels ramped up attacks on the kingdom.

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Yemen, which has been embroiled in more than a decade of civil conflict, in July became the latest country to be dragged into the Middle East war after the Houthis upended a 2022 truce with the country’s Saudi-backed government.

The group “successfully carried out two military operations using drones: the first targeted a sensitive Saudi enemy site at Najran Airport, while the second targeted the Aramco facility in Najran”, military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement on Telegram.

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This week, a Yemeni minister told AFP that the Houthi rebels were plotting to seize land along the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a move that would allow them to further threaten the vital shipping artery. Three Houthi military sources, as well as a spokesman for the Yemeni government forces battling them near the waterway, also told AFP that the rebels were planning to advance south from their current territory.

Hostilities resumed last month when the Houthis welcomed an Iranian plane in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, setting off a spate of tit-for-tat attacks. The rebels later announced a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and began hitting its ships, airports and oil facilities. The latest claimed drone operations in Najran came amid those widening hostilities and fresh warnings over the Houthis’ next moves.