DUBAI, Oct 27 (Reuters) – Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Tuesday they had hit Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura oil refinery, the biggest in the kingdom, with a ballistic missile.
The group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the strike had caused a fire at the complex, which also includes a shipping terminal, located on the Gulf, west of the Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi authorities did not immediately confirm the strike.
Ras Tanura, which has a capacity of 550,000 barrels per day, was shut for a period in the early months of the Iran war as a precautionary measure.
The Houthi militia have escalated their attacks on Saudi Arabia since September, opening another front in the wider US-Israeli war on Iran.
Nearly all of Saudi Arabia’s oil exports flow through two main ports: Ras Tanura in the Gulf and Yanbu on the Red Sea, both of which the Houthis have attacked in the past.
Bloomberg News cited a person familiar with the matter as saying Saudi Arabia had contained a fire near Ras Tanura’s terminal in the early hours.
The Houthis have been regularly firing ballistic missiles and drones at Saudi airports, ports and oil installations in recent weeks. On Tuesday afternoon, civil defence authorities briefly issued an air raid alert in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting against the Houthis in support of Yemen’s internationally recognised government said it had intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles launched by the Houthis towards Riyadh.
The fighting has shattered a 2022 UN-brokered truce between the coalition and the Houthis, who control the Yemeni capital Sanaa.
On Monday, Mecca defence pact countries Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan met Iranian officials in Tehran to try to de-escalate the overall Middle East conflict.
Parliament in Egypt, which has said it is considering joining the Mecca pact, on Monday authorised the Egyptian military to help defend Saudi Arabia if asked.
(Reporting by Yasmine GhaniaWriting by Nayera AbdallahEditing by Michael Georgy and Peter Graff)
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