Houthis say they attacked Saudi oil sites as fighting spreads

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they launched missile and drone attacks against Saudi oil facilities on Saturday, as fighting involving regional allies of the United States and Iran opened another front.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a video statement that the group targeted Aramco sites in Jizan and Yanbu. He also threatened to widen the group's response if Saudi Arabia attacked the Houthis.

Earlier, Houthi media said a strike on Jizan had caused fires. A video circulating on social media and verified by AFP showed dark clouds rising above an Aramco refinery in the city.

Saudi Arabia did not directly comment on the attack. The kingdom's civil defence issued warnings for Jizan, on the southwestern coast, and Yanbu, farther north.

The Greek air force press office said a surface-to-air battery operated by Greek personnel in Saudi Arabia shot down two ballistic missiles and later a drone launched from Yemen toward Yanbu on Saturday morning.

The Houthis had accused Saudi Arabia, a US ally, of a “dangerous escalation” after Riyadh struck Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday. A Yemeni security source said a naval base in the port city of Hodeida and a military camp on Kamaran Island were among the sites hit by Saudi Arabia.

Faiza, a 36-year-old mother of two in Hodeida, said the strikes sounded like loud thunder and that she heard three separate explosions. She said she did not want to believe the area had returned to strikes.

The Houthis have been fighting Yemen's internationally recognised, Saudi-backed government since 2015. The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people and caused a major humanitarian crisis. Fighting in Yemen had been largely frozen since a UN-negotiated truce in 2022.

This week, the Houthis announced a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, and hit Saudi tankers in the Red Sea.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran could not be blamed for the situation. He offered to help start dialogue between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia and said there was no military solution.

The threat to shipping is unfolding alongside Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has become a central flashpoint between Tehran and Washington during renewed hostilities. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday that their forces had stopped four ships trying to pass through the strategic chokepoint during the previous 24 hours.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations monitor also reported a fresh incident on Saturday near the Strait of Hormuz involving a tanker and unspecified military forces.

The United States did not announce strikes on Iran, the first such pause after 13 consecutive nights of bombardments. Axios reported that the Pentagon had presented President Donald Trump with a plan for a 14th night of strikes, but that Trump decided not to authorise it and instead favoured another push for talks.

Trump said on Friday that he had not decided whether to return to a large-scale operation against Iran. He said the United States was talking to Iran and that Tehran could make a deal or face a much higher level of strikes.

Trump also said he did not know what would be the “tipping point” for a decision, but repeated that his red line would be Iran being close to developing a nuclear weapon. The source report said the war, which Trump once predicted would last four or five weeks, was nearing its fifth month and weighing on his approval ratings before US midterm elections in November.