Iran’s proxy war in Yemen has heated up. In return for these strikes, Saudi Arabia has launched air raids against Houthi military targets.
Houthis are not only backed by Iran, it is armed by Iran. Despite this, Joe Biden recently ended the terrorist designation for Houthis, prompting increased concerns that Biden is damaging peace efforts in the Middle East while empowering Iran. Gerald Feierstein, the former US ambassador to Yemen, stated last June:
The Iranian engagement began long before the outbreak of the civil war or the Saudi coalition’s intervention. It’s clear that the Iranians saw the Houthi movement as an opportunity to put pressure on Saudi Arabia and to threaten its southern border.
Iran knows all too well how to push the U.S.’s limits, which have expanded significantly ever since the Biden administration came to power.
“Houthis fire missiles, drones at Saudi oil facilities,” Al Jazeera, March 7, 2021:
Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired drones and missiles at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry on Sunday, attacking a Saudi Aramco facility at Ras Tanura in an assault the kingdom said was aimed at the security and stability of the global energy supply.
Announcing the attacks, the Houthis also said they attacked military targets in the Saudi cities of Dammam, Asir and Jazan.
The Saudi energy ministry said an oil storage yard at Ras Tanura, the site of an oil refinery and the world’s biggest offshore oil loading facility, was attacked with a drone but there were no casualties or property loss.
“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, coming from the sea,” the ministry said in a statement released by the official Saudi Press Agency.
It added that shrapnel from a ballistic missile fell near Aramco’s residential compound in Dhahran.
“Such acts of sabotage do not only target the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but also the security and stability of energy supplies to the world, and therefore, the global economy,” a ministry spokesman said in a statement on state media.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said the group fired 14 drones and eight ballistic missiles across the border with the kingdom in a “wide operation in the heart of Saudi Arabia”.
The United States mission in Saudi Arabia advised US citizens to take precautions after reports of possible attacks and explosion in the area of Dhahran, Dammam and Khobar in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.
The province is home to most of Saudi Aramco’s oil production and export facilities.
The spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen said that Saudi Arabia will take all necessary measures to protect itself, and to ensure the stability of energy supplies and maritime traffic.
The attacks on a petroleum tank farm at Ras Tanura port and on Aramco facilities in Dhahran were “cowardly terrorist attacks”, a defence ministry spokesman said in a statement on state news agency SPA.
Escalation
The coalition said earlier on Sunday it intercepted 12 drones launched by the Houthis, including five that were fired towards the kingdom, and two ballistic missiles fired towards Jizan.Separately, the coalition said it conducted air strikes on Houthi military targets in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and other regions and warned that “civilians and civilian objects in the Kingdom are a red line”.
It said the Houthis – who have been battling the coalition since it intervened in Yemen’s civil war in March 2015 – had been emboldened after the new US administration revoked a terrorist designations on the group in February that had been imposed by former President Donald Trump.
The Houthis had interpreted their removal from the list “in a hostile way”, the coalition said, adding that it’s “victories” in the Yemeni region of Marib had also prompted the rebels to step up their attacks inside the kingdom….
mortimer says
Iran’s mullahs are obviously trying to see how far they can go before Sleepy, Creepy, Cognitively-Struggling Quid-Pro-Joe Beijing Bribed-en responds! 48 days without a press conference for Basement Bribeden.
Steve says
Isn’t it about time for Saudi Arabia to snap its fingers and instruct America to take care of this? Bill and all.
Infidel says
That era has ended, when the Saudis had their servant Bush in power. Trump told them that they’d have to pay for such a service, while Biden downright supports Iran against Saudi Arabia. Now is the right time for Iranian tanks to roll into Mecca and Medina, demolish the tombs of Abu Baqr, Umar and Uthman, and try imposing the Twelver sect on the locals
Would be a fun blowout to watch
DavidR says
Remember when Obama told Syria that using chemical or biological weapons would be met with military action and then, after they used them, he did nothing? When the U.S. military and the President signal weakness, disinterest, hesitancy and make spurious threats it doesn’t go unnoticed, unless you’re a journalist.
While dedicated to domination type Muslims will act in response to Western weakness they will also continue killing if the West chooses a hawkish path. It’s the half hearted Jihadis, the ones who really don’t care for martydomom or imprisonment and are in it for the sex slaves, that would take advantage of a leader who is beholden to the never attack military strategy of his party’s most leftward members. If things got really out of hand Biden would leave it to the military to figure out how to wage war while giving half of their attention toward the impossible goal of zero civilian casualties.
I am pretty sure that the President and most of his administration would fail a test with simple questions about Islam.
True or False
Islam has 50 pillars plus 1 extra if needed
The Ottoman Empire was a plush foot rest company
Muhammad never had a dog
1 man and 2.5 women are equal
Only Allah grasps his inheritance laws
Before he started hanging out in a cave (in his thirties) Muhammad worked at a camel wash
Muhammad was born 570 B.C. and died 632 C.E.
No homosexuals live in Iran
There is no age of consent for women in Islam
There are no Jews in Mecca
gravenimage says
Yemen: Iran-backed Houthis fire ballistic missiles and drones at oil facilities and military sites in Saudi Arabia
………….
More internecine Muslim violence.