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A new strike hit Saudi Aramco’s 400,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Jizan on September 7, the Financial Times reported, citing two people familiar with the incident.
The attack puts a major Red Sea refining center at risk as Saudi Arabia increases oil shipments westward to sidestep the Strait of Hormuz. It took place while Saudi-backed forces and Houthi forces continued fighting along Yemen’s western coast.
One source told the FT that the attack was on a scale similar to a previous strike last month that briefly interrupted the plant’s operations.
Aramco has offered no comment on the damage. However, data from NASA’s FIRMS system and images from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite indicate that a massive fire broke out at the refinery.
The Jizan facility has been targeted multiple times since Saudi Arabia and the Houthis resumed hostilities this summer. The group struck Aramco sites in Jizan and Yanbu in July, leaving smoke visible over the refinery, then attacked Jizan again in August.The plant’s Red Sea location has grown more vital after the war with Iran hampered oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz.
The Houthis have not claimed responsibility. However, the group’s spokesman warned Saudi Arabia later in the day that its escalation in Yemen would not remain without response and punishment.
In a brief post on Telegram, Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said: “In parallel with its continuous siege on Yemen, the Saudi enemy took escalatory steps by launching airstrikes and committing massacres, the latest of which was the al-Jawf massacre, and the flying of spy planes and supplying its mercenaries with various types of weapons.”
The warning came after pro-Houthi Yemeni media reported that over 30 people had gone missing following a Saudi strike on a correctional facility in the northern province of al-Jawf.
Separately, the Houthis released video footage documenting a missile strike that targeted the al-Wadeeah border crossing, located between Saudi Arabia’s Najran and the central Yemeni province of Hadramaut. The strike wiped out many trucks that were moving weapons and ammunition to Saudi-backed forces.
The recent escalation in Yemen fractured the relative calm established by a United Nations-brokered truce in 2022. A return to full-on war seems more likely every day.
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