Yemeni Armed Forces Claim Drone Op on Saudi Aramco Oil Plants

By Staff, Agencies

In its statement, Yemen’s Armed forces claimed responsibility for the drone operation on two oil facilities of Saudi Arabia's state oil giant Aramco in the country's east, which caused huge fires before dawn on Saturday.

The spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, said in a statement on Saturday, “The Air Force carried out an operation – dubbed ‘Operation Balance of Deterrence 2’ – of a 10-drone squadron on two Saudi Aramco plants in Abqaiq and Khurais”.

General Saree said that the operation was accurate and direct, pointing out that “the targeting of Abqaiq and Khurais plants comes within the framework of the legitimate and natural response to the crimes of the Saudi aggression”.

The Yemeni Armed forces spokesman promised the regime in Saudi Arabia, “that our future operations will expand and be more painful as long as its aggression and blockade continue”.

Relatedly, Yemen’s Minister of Tourism Ahmed al-Ali in an interview with the Lebanon-based Arabic language al-Mayadeen TV assured that no civilians were harmed saying, “we have not targeted any civilian targets in Saudi Arabia; strategic facilities were targeted”.

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 operation.