Drone Attacks Spark Fire at 2 Saudi Aramco Oil Plants

By Staff, Agencies

Drones have hit two oil facilities of Saudi Arabia's state oil giant Aramco in the country's east, causing huge fires before dawn on Saturday.

A spokesman for Saudi Arabia's interior ministry said in a statement that the attacks targeted two Aramco factories in Abqaiq and Khurais.

The statement did not identify the source of the attack, but Ansarullah revolutionaries and their allies in Yemen's army have carried out similar attacks in recent months in retaliation for the kingdom's airstrikes in the impoverished nation.

Meanwhile, the spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced that Yemeni forces will be issuing a statement in the coming hours about details of the largest Yemeni Air Forces operation into the depth of Saudi Arabia.

Abqaiq, about 60 km [37 miles] southwest of Dhahran in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, contains the world's largest oil processing plant. Most Saudi oil exported from the Gulf is processed there.

The incident comes nearly a month after Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities in Shaybah, the kingdom’s largest strategic oil reserve near the UAE border, were targeted by Yemeni forces in a major drone attack.

Yemeni forces also launched a successful raid on a major pipeline spanning the kingdom in May.

The Saudi-led war has so far turned into a quagmire for Riyadh, with Yemeni forces increasingly using sophisticated weaponry in retaliatory operations. The UAE, Saudi Arabia’s most notable partner in the conflict, has consequently announced the gradual withdrawal of its troops from country, largely because it believes the war has become "unwinnable", according to US reports.