At least 73 people were wounded and fires broke out at multiple energy facilities after Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they launched a wave of ballistic missiles and drones at sites in southern Saudi Arabia. The movement’s military spokesman described the strikes as a direct response to recent Saudi actions.
Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, speaking in a prerecorded video statement, said the rebels fired dozens of ballistic missiles and drones at oil and economic facilities and at a southern air base. He identified Jazan City for Primary and Downstream Industries, a major industrial and logistics hub on the Red Sea coast, as a principal target. Saree also named Aramco facilities in Najran and Abha, and King Khalid Air Base in Khamis Mushait.
Saree blamed Saudi Arabia for the escalation, and warned that, “every aggression against our country and people will be met with a firm response.” The strikes, he said, were launched hours after the rebels accused Saudi forces of an airstrike on a prison in Yemen’s northern province of Jawf.
The Houthis said the Jawf strike killed at least seven people, including a child, and wounded seven others in the city of Hazem. That attack, they said, prompted the cross-border retaliation that hit industrial and military infrastructure in Saudi Arabia’s south.
The operation underlines the Houthis’ capacity to strike beyond Yemen’s borders and to target energy and logistics nodes that sit near the Red Sea. The group’s naming of specific Aramco sites and the Jazan industrial complex points to a focus on facilities that are central to regional fuel processing and supply chains.
Officials in Riyadh have not been quoted here on immediate countermeasures or assessments. It is unclear how Saudi authorities will respond or whether the strikes will prompt a wider military escalation. For now, the exchanges leave civilian populations and key industrial installations in southern Saudi Arabia and parts of northern Yemen exposed to renewed rounds of violence and disruption.
