Iran celebrates, US slams Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia

Meanwhile, the US is nonplussed. The US State Department spokesman Ned Price slammed the recent attacks. “The US joins the international community in calling for an end to the Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia and all parties to commit to a ceasefire. Today’s attempts to disrupt global energy supplies by attacking Aramco show an utter lack of concern for the safety of civilians.”

In Yemen, the Houthi rebels said that they used six drones to strike at a Saudi oil facility using “high precision.” This happened on Friday at dawn, they claimed. The Houthis said it was “in retaliation for the stepped-up Saudi-led military campaign and blockade” and they claimed it was the “sixth operation of Shaaban… The General Command of the [Houthi] Armed Forces confirms that its operations are continuing and escalating as long as the aggression and siege continue.”

The Houthis have been trying to take over Yemen for almost a decade. In 2015 they threatened Aden and the Bab al-Mandab strategic straits. Saudi Arabia led an intervention to stop them. They have used Iranian drones and missiles to strike deep into Saudi Arabia. Iran has also attacked Saudi Arabia, in 2019 in Abqaiq and also using Iraqi proxies earlier this year and in May 2019. The US, under the waning days of the Trump administration, declared the Houthis “terrorists” earlier this year, but then the new Biden administration rescinded the designation weeks later. The Houthis have upped their attacks.

The Houthis are called the Ansarullah movement and their official slogan is “death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews.” On Saturday they called on the “invading military coalition led by Saudi Arabia to release all Yemeni ships within the next two days as a first step to end a persisting blockade against the Yemeni people.” Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a head of the group’s leadership council, said, “We call on the United States, Britain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and their allies to hold a comprehensive ceasefire throughout the Republic of Yemen and remove the current blockade.”

Meanwhile in Riyadh, the recent attacks on Saudi Aramco facilities had links to Iran, the Kingdom’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir told Arab News. “All of the missiles and drones that came into Saudi are Iranian manufactured or Iranian supplied,” he said. “Several of them, as we’ve said, came from the north; several came from the sea.” In his view, the US decision to remove the Houthis from its international terrorism list, on the same day the Yemeni separatists attacked the civilian airport in Abha in Saudi Arabia, would make little difference to the international effort to provide aid to the country, he told Arab News.

“We have made this very clear to our friends in Europe and to the US as well as to the United Nations special envoy,” Al-Jubeir said.

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“We have supported every effort and every initiative by the UN special envoys to arrive at a solution. We have worked to unify the Yemeni government, to unify the north with the Southern Transition Council. We have provided more than $17 billion in humanitarian assistance. We have made it very clear that the only solution in Yemen is a political solution based on the GCC initiative, the outcomes of the Yemeni National Dialogue and the UN Security Council Resolution 2216,” he said.

The strike on the refinery Saturday follows the attack on the Ras Tanura oil export hub two weeks ago. The Houthis have threatened to increase attacks on Aramco. It is clear they are following through with their threats. The US does not appear to have an answer to the increased attacks and Iran is using the Houthis to showcase their capabilities.