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BFF-03
SAUDI-CONFLICT-ENERGY
Drone attacks eastern Saudi port, missile targets Aramco facilities: energy
ministry
RIYADH, March 8, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – A drone attacked a Saudi oil port and a
ballistic missile targeted facilities of energy giant Aramco in the country’s
east on Sunday, the energy ministry said.
“One of the petroleum tank areas at the Ras Tanura Port in the Eastern
Region, one of the largest oil ports in the world, was attacked this morning
by a drone” from the sea, the ministry said in a statement released by the
official Saudi Press Agency.
Later Sunday, “shrapnel from a ballistic missile fell near Saudi Aramco’s
residential area in the city of Dhahran, where thousands of the company’s
employees and their families from different nationalities live,” it said.
In a later statement, the defence ministry said that “the drone that
attacked from the sea was destroyed and brought down before reaching its
target, and the ballistic missile that targeted Aramco facilities in Dhahran
was also destroyed.”
It said shrapnel from the missile had fallen close to civilian
infrastructure.
The defence ministry said the attacks targeted “the backbone of the world
economy, oil supplies and global energy security”.
Neither statement reported casualties or damage, nor said who was behind
the attacks.
But Yemen’s Huthi rebels claimed on Twitter they fired drones and missiles
at Ras Tanura and military targets in the area of Dammam, which is close to
Dhahran.
Earlier on Sunday, the Saudi-led military coalition mounted air strikes on
Yemen’s Huthi-controlled capital Sanaa after intercepting a flurry of drones
and missiles launched by the Iran-backed rebels, SPA reported.
The developments marked a new escalation in Yemen’s six-year conflict
between the coalition-backed Yemeni government and the Huthi insurgents,
despite a renewed US push to end the hostilities.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0833 hrs