Yemen’s Houthi rebels unleashed a barrage of drone and missile strikes on Saudi Arabia that targeted key facilities including natural gas and desalination plants early today. The Saudi-led military coalition said, Houthi aerial strikes targeted a range of facilities including a Saudi Arabian Oil Co.(Aramco) liquified gas plant in the Red Sea port of Yanbu, a power station in the country’s southwest and a desalination facility in Al-Shaqeeq on the Red Sea coast. According to Saudi state-run media there were no injuries or fatalities and there was no impact on the Oil supplies to the customers. Brig. Yehia Sarie, a spokesman for Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, said the rebels had launched a wide and large military operation into the depth of Saudi Arabia.
The barrage comes days after the Saudi-based Gulf Cooperation Council said it invited Yemen’s warring sides for talks in Riyadh aimed at ending the war, an offer dismissed out of hand by the Houthis, who demanded that negotiations take place in a neutral country.
Yemen’s brutal war erupted in 2015, after the Iran-backed Houthis seized the country’s capital, Sanaa, and swept across much of the north. Saudi Arabia and other Arab states launched a devastating air campaign to dislodge the Houthis and restore the internationally recognized government.