An administrative Saudi Aramco tower in the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD), Riyadh's business hub, was damaged on Sunday after an attack on the Saudi capital. The Saudi energy ministry said the damage was limited, attributed it to falling debris and reported no injuries or deaths. A Reuters reporter saw windows blown out across several floors of the building.
Saudi Civil Defence issued an early-warning alert shortly before a series of loud booms was heard in the city and later said the danger had passed. Similar alerts were issued and lifted in parts of the Eastern Province, including Dhahran, where Aramco is headquartered.
Conflicting accounts of what was intercepted
The Saudi-led coalition first said it had intercepted two missiles fired by the Houthis toward Riyadh. It later said it had intercepted and destroyed two cruise missiles over Riyadh and over the south of the country.
In posts on X, coalition spokesperson Major-General Turki al-Maliki referred to three ballistic missiles shot down — two of them aimed at Riyadh — and, in a separate message, to the interception of a ballistic missile directed at the Eastern Province. The tallies released through the day do not match one another, and Aramco did not immediately comment.
Houthis claim six operations
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on X that the group had carried out six operations against Aramco oil facilities, Riyadh airport and Saudi military positions on both sides of the border. It was not clear whether these were the same actions reported by the coalition: Al Jazeera noted that the two counts did not line up.
Oil at the centre of the war
The truce brokered by the United Nations (UN) in 2022 collapsed in July, after the Houthis announced a blockade of Saudi ports. Since then the group has stepped up missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports, ports and oil installations — a pattern that turns the kingdom's energy infrastructure into a recurring target rather than an occasional one.
Aramco's headquarters suffered extensive damage in an attack in October. On 10 October, an attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh killed 13 people and wounded more than 300, according to Saudi authorities.
By UN figures, more than 1,600 people have been killed and almost 300,000 displaced since the ceasefire collapsed in July.
Escalation in Yemen
On Saturday, Anees al-Asbahi, spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry, said 33 people — including eight women and 13 children — had been killed in coalition air attacks on the village of al-Shariyah, near Sanaa, and that another 39 were wounded. There was no immediate comment from the coalition, and Al Jazeera said it could not independently verify the reports.
Saree said he had counted 105 air strikes and missile attacks in 24 hours on Sanaa and seven other governorates, bringing the total since the escalation began to 4,369. Last month Yemeni government forces launched the "Dawn of Yemen" operation to retake Houthi-held territory, including the capital. On Friday, an attack on a market in Taiz killed 30 people: the Houthis blamed Saudi air strikes, and government forces blamed a Houthi ballistic missile.
With information from Al Jazeera and Reuters.
