Status: 03/20/2022 10:17 a.m
Peace efforts in the Yemen conflict have suffered a setback. Houthi rebels are said to have attacked several targets in Saudi Arabia with drones and rockets. Oil installations and a power plant were shelled.
The Yemeni Houthi rebels have apparently attacked several targets in Saudi Arabia. State media reported barrages of drone and rocket attacks. The military coalition under the Saudi leadership said that a liquefied natural gas plant owned by the oil company Aramco at the port of Janbu on the Red Sea had been shelled. But the attack was repelled.
Other attacks included a power plant in the southwest of the country, a desalination plant in Al-Shakeek, an Aramco terminal in the southern border town of Jazan and a gas station in the southern city of Khamis Mushait.
Ballistic missile intercepted
According to the coalition, four drones were intercepted and destroyed after the attacks. A ballistic missile fired in the direction of the city of Jazan was stopped. The military coalition said there were no casualties in the attacks.
However, civilian vehicles and residential buildings in the affected area were damaged. The official news agency SPA published several photos of fire engines in action, as well as of destroyed vehicles and craters in the ground.
Rebels declined an offer of talks
The attacks marked the latest escalation in cross-border Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia. A spokesman for the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, Jehia Sarie, spoke of a “broad and large-scale military operation deep in Saudi Arabia.” He did not initially give any further details.
Before the attacks, the Saudi Arabia-based Gulf Cooperation Council had invited Yemen’s warring parties to talks in Riyadh to end the war. The Houthi rebels refused, demanding that the negotiations take place in a “neutral” country. The coalition led by Saudi Arabia saw the latest attacks as an escalation and response to their offer to talk, Al Arabiya broadcaster reported.
Millions of Yemenis were forced to flee
A proxy war has been raging in Yemen between the regional powers Iran and Saudi Arabia since 2015. While Iran supports the Shiite Houthi rebels, the government in Riyadh is leading a group of Sunni-leaning Gulf states in the fight against these insurgents. The coalition is thus supporting the internationally recognized Yemeni government of Abd-Rabbu Mansur Hadi, which was driven out of Yemen’s capital Sanaa by the Houthi rebels at the end of 2014.
According to the UN, around 380,000 people have already been killed in the conflict, and millions more have had to flee. The UN classifies the situation in Yemen as the greatest humanitarian catastrophe in the world.