Yemen's Houthis 'target Saudi Aramco facilities in Jizan'

Yemen's Houthi rebels said on Wednesday that they had targeted facilities belonging to Saudi Aramco in Jizan on the Red Sea in response to "escalating air strikes", but there was no immediate confirmation from Saudi authorities of any attack.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saria said in comments reported by Houthi-run Al Masirah TV that the rebel group had also targeted non-energy Saudi facilities near the border with Yemen.

Saria did not give a timeframe for the assault, and state oil giant Aramco declined to comment on the report.

The spokesman said in more than 15 "operations" had been carried out in the past week inside Saudi Arabia in retaliation for an escalation in air strikes.

Yemen has been ongoing in Yemen for almost five years since Houthi rebels ousted the internationally-recognised government of President Abed Rabbu Mansour Hadi from the capital in late 2014. A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in 2015 in a bid to restore him.

In a separate statement, Saria said that other Saudi sites targeted “with a large number of rockets and drones” near the border with Yemen include Abha and Jizan airports and Khamis Mushait military base.

If confirmed, they would be the first such Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia since late September, when the group said it would halt missile and drone attacks on Saudi cities if the coalition ended its air strikes on Yemen.

The group extended the offer after claiming responsibility for an unprecedented 14 September assault on Saudi oil facilities that initially halved the kingdom's output. 

Riyadh rejected the claim and instead blamed Iran, which denied any involvement.