The Iran-backed Houthi militia threatened to strike multiple facilities belonging to Saudi Arabia’s oil giant Aramco on Tuesday and accused Saudi forces of targeting an oil company in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.
The threat against Aramco was made soon after Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition that is fighting the Houthis in Yemen, told civilians to evacuate the site of al-Sabaha Central Station, an oil facility in Houthi-controlled Sanaa, in a post on social media.
Later on Tuesday, the Houthi-run television network al-Masirah reported that a Saudi airstrike had targeted the oil site, without elaborating. Saudi strikes on another oil facility in Hodeidah, in western Yemen, killed at least two people, Anis al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry, said on Tuesday.
It was not immediately possible to verify whether either of the sites had been hit, and the Saudi authorities did not respond to questions about the reported strikes.
It was unclear whether the Houthis would act on their threat against Aramco. The militia has targeted the company’s facilities before and has frequently hit Saudi oil infrastructure and tankers in the Red Sea since tensions escalated between the two sides in July.
Saudi warplanes have been bombing Houthi positions in Yemen in support of the internationally recognized Yemeni government, which is fighting to retake territory seized by the Houthis last month.
Yahya Saree, a military spokesman for the Houthis, said in a post on social media that, if Saudi forces were to attack the oil company in Sanaa, then the Houthis would target Aramco’s headquarters in Dammam, Saudi Arabia; the company’s refinery in the capital, Riyadh; and King Khalid International Airport, also in Riyadh.
The Houthis struck the airport over the weekend, and an attack on Saturday killed at least 13 people and wounded more than 300. It was the deadliest attack on a Gulf Arab country since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, the Houthis’ primary backers.
On Tuesday, Saudi officials, during a cabinet meeting chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, vowed that the Houthis would bear the consequences for the “heinous attacks” on the kingdom’s airports.
The Houthis on Sunday accused Saudi Arabia of bombing an airport in the Yemeni capital, according to statements carried by the Saba news agency, which is run by the militia. The Saudi authorities have not commented on that assertion.
President Trump, in a social media post after the exchange of threats on Tuesday, said, “The Houthis are behaving very badly.” He said that he thought the militia had “learned their lesson a year ago when we bombed the HELL out of them.”
Though Mr. Trump condemned the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia over the weekend, he has so far rebuffed the kingdom’s requests for U.S. support in fighting the militia.
The Houthi militia has been fighting the internationally recognized government of Yemen, which is backed by Saudi Arabia, since 2014. Saudi Arabia pledged to restore the government, declaring war on the Houthis and initiating a bombing campaign that triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. A fragile truce agreed to in 2022 has unraveled in recent months.
Emboldened by regional instability, the battle-hardened Houthis have far less to lose against their more powerful, wealthier enemies, even as they imperil Saudi Arabia’s ambitions to transform itself into a global hub of business and tourism.
The Red Cross called for the urgent de-escalation of the conflict on Tuesday, warning that further escalation would be disastrous for tens of millions of civilians. “Civilians are paying an unacceptable price as a result of military operations in the Middle East,” said Mirjana Spoljaric, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Shuaib Almosawa contributed reporting from Sanaa, Yemen.
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