Houthi missile hits an Aramco building at its Dhahran headquarters, with new threats to airports and oil facilities

A Houthi missile hit an administrative building of the state oil company Aramco in its headquarters compound in Dhahran, in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, overnight on Tuesday into Wednesday, October 14. The Ministry of Energy announced that a fire broke out in the building, which the Saudi authorities described as limited, and that there were no casualties. No other details on the damage were given.

The Dhahran compound is not merely a corporate building. Aramco moved its headquarters there from New York in 1952, near the site where the country’s first commercial oil was found in 1938. It spreads over 58 square kilometres, with housing for about 11,000 employees and family members, research and technology centres and the Ithra cultural centre. It is the command centre of the world’s largest oil exporter.

After the strike the Houthis threatened new attacks on Saudi airports and oil facilities. On Wednesday the Saudi-led coalition announced that it had intercepted a missile fired toward Riyadh, while the Saudi air force struck a fuel depot in Yemen and the Houthis warned of retaliation.

Riyadh airport closed until October 17

Riyadh’s King Khalid airport remains closed until October 17, after four attacks. The most recent, on Saturday, killed 13 people and was the deadliest attack in Saudi Arabia in a decade. Earlier the Houthis had hit Riyadh and Dammam again.

The Saudi government’s response

The Saudi Cabinet, chaired by Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, said on Tuesday that the “terrorist Houthi militia will bear the consequences” of the attacks on airports, on Mecca, on Medina, on pilgrims and on civilian and economic facilities, according to the official announcement. It praised the military operations of the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen and repeated that the kingdom will not tolerate threats to its security or to navigation in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb. It also said that the flow of crude through the East-West pipeline had been restored.

On Wednesday Mohammed bin Salman received Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi in Riyadh, the first foreign leader to visit the Saudi capital since the airport attack. According to the Iraqi prime minister’s office, al-Zaidi condemned the attack and repeated that Iraqi territory must not be used for attacks against Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has attributed the July drone strikes to attacks from Iraqi territory.

The UN had already discussed the Houthi attacks on Saudi airports, with Greece condemning them.