Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Adel al-Jubeir, has denounced that missiles and drones launched by the Yemeni insurgency against its oil facilities have been either manufactured or delivered by Iran, a major ally of the Houthi rebels.
“All missiles and drones entering Saudi Arabia are either manufactured or supplied by Iran,” Al Jubeir said in an interview with Arab News.
“Several of them, as we have said, came from the north; several came from the sea,” he has added during the interview, published shortly after a Houthi attack on a refinery of the Saudi state oil company, Aramco, in Riyadh.
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The attack was carried out with six explosive-laden drones, which caused a controlled fire shortly afterwards, and had no impact on crude oil supplies, according to Saudi authorities.
In his view, the U.S. decision to remove the Houthis from its international terrorism list, on the same day Yemen separatists attacked Saudi Arabia’s Abha civilian airport, will make no difference to the international effort to provide aid to the country.
“They steal humanitarian aid and sell it to finance their war machine. They induce young children, 9, 10, 11 years old, to fight on the battlefield, which is against international law and is a gross violation of human rights,” he lamented. “So, from our perspective, the message is very clear: these people belong to a terrorist list,” Al-Jubeir concluded.
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This month, Saudi Arabia intercepted a barrage of drones targeting its oil infrastructure. These incidents sent oil prices soaring to over $70 a barrel for the first time since January 2020.
Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia rarely claim lives or cause major damage, but their frequency has increased in recent months, creating unrest in the Gulf, a key region for global oil production and transit.
Al-Jubeir also said Saudi Arabia’s position toward normalization with Israel remains subject to the establishment of a Palestinian state after Israeli Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen indicated Wednesday that his country may be on track to normalize ties with the Arab kingdom.
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