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Yemeni Houthis Say They Hit Saudi Oil Facility in Drone, Missile Attack 


FILE - A Saudi border guard patrols Saudi Arabia's maritime border with Yemen along a beach on the Red Sea, near Jizan, Apr. 8, 2015.
FILE - A Saudi border guard patrols Saudi Arabia's maritime border with Yemen along a beach on the Red Sea, near Jizan, Apr. 8, 2015.

Yemeni Houthi forces hit a large oil facility in the southern Saudi Arabian city of Jizan in drone and missile attacks overnight, a Houthi military spokesman said on Monday.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis said earlier it had intercepted and destroyed four missiles and six explosive drones fired by the Houthis over the border towards Saudi Arabia.

There was no Saudi confirmation of where they were intercepted or whether anything was hit.

Oil company Saudi Aramco operates a 400,000-barrel-per-day refinery in the Red Sea city of Jizan, which lies around 60 km (40 miles) from the Yemen border. Aramco declined to comment.

"With many drones our armed forces targeted military aircraft, pilot accommodation and Patriot systems in Khamis Mushait, and other military targets at Abha, Jizan and Najran airports," said Yahya Sarea, a Houthi military spokesman.

"Additionally, the giant oil facility in the Jizan industrial zone. The strike was accurate."

Khamis Mushait, Abha, Jizan and Najran are all in southwest Saudi Arabia near the Yemen border.

Cross-border attacks by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement have escalated since late May when a truce prompted by the coronavirus pandemic expired. In late June, missiles reached the Saudi capital Riyadh.

The coalition, in a statement published by Saudi state news agency SPA, did not say where the objects where intercepted but said the drones had been launched from the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa towards Saudi Arabia.

The coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 after the Houthis ousted the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government from Sanaa in late 2014.

The Houthis, who control most large urban centers, say they are fighting a corrupt system.

Houthi-run news outlet Al Masirah said the coalition had carried out air strikes on various regions under Houthi control on Monday.

The United Nations has launched virtual talks among the warring parties on a permanent cease-fire and confidence-building steps to restart peace negotiations.

But discussions have been complicated by the surge in violence since the cease-fire expired.

The war has killed more than 100,000 people and caused what the United Nations describes as the world's largest humanitarian crisis.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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