Saudi Coalition Disputes Houthi Claim of Attack on Aramco Site Near Riyadh

An Aramco oil facility near Riyadh is at the centre of competing accounts of an alleged attack, as fighting intensifies in Yemen. The Houthis said they struck the site with ballistic missiles and drones, causing large fires. The Saudi-led coalition dismissed their account as misleading, according to Al Jazeera. The report provides no independent confirmation of the claimed strike or the fires.

Coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki responded on Saturday to the claims by the Iran-allied armed group. In comments carried late that day by Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, he portrayed the announcement as an effort to shift attention away from Houthi battlefield setbacks and what he described as mounting public anger against the group. The coalition supports Yemen’s internationally recognised government in its war against the Houthis.

“The Houthis are attempting to divert attention from the scale of the losses and the growing public anger against them,” coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki said.

An oil facility claim amid battlefield losses

The disputed account puts an oil facility in Saudi Arabia’s capital region alongside a separate struggle over territory in Yemen. The Houthi statement described a successful assault, while the coalition’s response focused on the group’s losses. Neither account, as presented in the report, establishes the condition of the Aramco facility. No figures for damage or any effect on oil output were provided.

On the battlefield, Colonel Majed Abdullah al-Nazili, spokesman for Yemen’s internationally recognised government forces, said those forces conducted 257 precision targeting operations on Saturday. He said the operations targeted Houthi positions, movements and military capabilities. Initial estimates put Houthi deaths at at least 700, he added. That toll was presented as a government-force estimate, not an independently verified count.

Al-Maliki also accused the Houthis of serving outside agendas that had brought destruction to Yemen. He linked their claim of an attack near Riyadh to the pressure they faced in Taiz, saying their difficulties there were driving them to claim victories. His remarks formed part of the coalition’s rebuttal rather than a detailed account of events at the oil facility.

Fighting reaches a key shipping corridor

Early on Sunday, the coalition announced another 97 targeting operations against Houthi reinforcements on the Tor al-Baha front and the Taiz axis. It said the operations involved warplanes, drones, artillery, missiles and snipers. These were a separate set of operations from the 257 reported by the Yemeni government forces for Saturday.

The latest exchanges follow the collapse in July of a fragile truce established in 2022, according to Al Jazeera. Fighting has since displaced hundreds of thousands of people. In mid-September, the Houthis captured the port city of Mocha and strategic islands in the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a narrow sea passage vital to global oil shipments. Anti-Houthi forces subsequently stabilised the front lines.

Yemen’s war dates to the Houthi seizure of Sanaa in 2014, which forced the government to retreat to Aden. The immediate points to watch are whether the claimed attack near Riyadh is substantiated and how fighting develops around Taiz and the shipping corridor. For now, the report leaves the alleged oil-facility strike unresolved.