Yemen Warns Of More Retaliatory Strikes As Saudis Seize Fuel Tanker

By Staff, Agencies

A spokesman for the Yemeni National Oil Company said the Saudi-led coalition has seized another fuel tanker heading for the impoverished nation which is under a crippling blockade of the kingdom.

"The US-led coalition of aggression, in order to tighten the siege on the Yemeni people, confiscated  the second tanker named Sea Adore carrying gasoline on Monday despite inspection and permit by the United Nations," Yemen's al-Masirah network quoted Essam al-Mutawakil as saying.

"The seizure of this ship has clearly ignored the suffering that the Yemeni people have undergone due to the unprecedented shortage of fuel," he added.

According to Mutawakil, the seizure raises the number of tankers held by the Saudi-led coalition of aggression to three, including two ships carrying gasoline. 

Earlier, spokesman for the Yemeni Ministry of Health Anis al-Asbahi said that Yemen's health sector needed more than 6 million liters of diesel to keep hospitals and medical oxygen production plants operational.

The seizure of fuel ships, he said, has shut down many dialysis and surgical wards and neonatal intensive care units.

The Saudi coalition's confiscation of the new fuel tanker comes after Yemeni forces unleashed a barrage of retaliatory drone and missile strikes on Saudi Arabia, targeting a Liquefied Natural Gas [LNG] plant and oil facility and other energy installations.

Later on Sunday, Saudi Arabia admitted that an aerial strike targeted an oil facility in the port city of Jeddah, sparking a fire. 

Spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces Brigadier General Yehya Saree indicated that the multiple attacks were in retaliation for "the criminal enemy's siege on the country's economic facilities and projects".

On Monday, senior Ansarullah official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said the retaliatory attacks have just started with the aim of breaking the Saudi-led siege on Yemen.

"We are determined to carry out operations against the Saudi coalition's oil facilities, and we have large stockpiles of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and UAVs," he said.

"The armed forces of Yemen once again warn the Saudi enemy that they have launched heavy strikes on the basis of the special purpose target bank to break the siege and have no doubts about expanding their scope of targets in the next phase," al-Bukhaiti added.

Senior US officials said Monday the Biden administration has transferred a significant number of Patriot antimissile interceptors to Saudi Arabia within the past month, fulfilling Riyadh’s urgent request for a resupply.

The transfer comes as the Biden administration has increasingly sought to convince Riyadh to pump more crude oil to help alleviate soaring prices spurred by Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.

Saudi Arabia warned on Monday that Yemeni strikes on the kingdom’s oil facilities pose a “direct threat” to global supplies.

Saudi Arabia “will not incur any responsibility” for shortages in oil supplies in light of the Yemeni attacks, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The statement came a day after a Yemeni drone assault on the Yasref refinery in Yanbu Industrial City on the Red Sea “led to a temporary reduction in the refinery’s production,” the Saudi energy ministry claimed.