Yemen’s Houthi rebels said on Saturday, October 24, that they had fired on oil installations and airports across Saudi Arabia and on Saudi-supervised military sites in the Yemeni port city of Aden, hours after Saudi air raids that the group says killed 16 people in areas under its control. Saudi authorities had not confirmed any of the claimed hits on the kingdom by Saturday evening.
What the Houthis say they targeted
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree listed a Saudi Aramco facility in Yanbu, the Rabigh oil refinery, the airports of Riyadh, Dammam and Najran, and an air base at Khamis Mushait among the targets. In Aden, the group said it struck the Al-Nasr military camp and a naval base, both overseen by Saudi forces.
Our armed forces targeted Saudi enemy concentrations at the so-called Al-Nasr camp and the naval base in Aden.
Yahya Saree, Houthi military spokesman
Four explosions were reported in Aden on Saturday evening, three of them around the international airport, according to regional broadcasters. Yemen’s transport minister said it was the fourth time the Houthis had targeted Aden airport, but added that flights, the city’s ports and daily life were continuing normally. Aden is the interim seat of Yemen’s internationally recognised, Saudi-backed government.
Missiles intercepted, alerts in Mecca and Jeddah
Earlier in the day, the Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted two ballistic missiles fired towards Taif and Yanbu in the west of the kingdom. Saudi Arabia’s civil defence agency briefly issued danger warnings for Taif, Yanbu, Mecca and Jeddah, telling residents to move to the nearest safe place, before withdrawing the alerts minutes later. The agency also reminded people that sharing images or details of missile and drone interceptions is against the law.
Saudi raids on Sanaa, Hodeidah and Mocha
The Houthi-run Al-Masirah channel reported a series of Saudi strikes on Sanaa and the surrounding governorate, and around 20 on the Red Sea city of Mocha. It said one strike on a house in Sanaa killed at least four people, a hit on a residential block for cement factory workers killed six women and a child, and a strike on a home in Hodeidah killed a man, two of his children and his two wives. These figures could not be independently verified.
Why it matters
Yanbu, on the Red Sea coast, has become Saudi Arabia’s main outlet for crude exports since Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, so any damage there could ripple through oil markets. The kingdom has faced repeated Houthi attacks on its airports and energy sites in recent weeks: a strike on Riyadh airport earlier this month killed 13 people, an Indian national was among two people killed in an attack on Dammam airport, and India has demanded that the strikes stop. This week the United States ordered non-essential embassy staff and their families out of Saudi Arabia.
Yemen’s civil war, largely frozen after a 2022 truce, flared again in July as the wider West Asia conflict that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February spread. Last month the Houthis seized Mocha and took control of the Red Sea coast, bringing them closer to the Bab el-Mandeb strait. Aden itself has been hit several times this month, including an October 15 missile strike on the presidential palace complex that killed five people.
What comes next
Attention now turns to whether Riyadh confirms damage at Yanbu, Rabigh or any of the airports, and to how the coalition responds. Egypt has floated sending troops to help defend Saudi Arabia, while Britain and France have offered their forces to protect the kingdom.
