RIYADH (The Thursday Times) — Yemen’s Houthis said on Tuesday they had hit Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry in Riyadh with a ballistic missile, hours after claiming an attack on the kingdom’s biggest oil refinery at Ras Tanura, as Pakistan’s defence minister pledged that Islamabad would defend Saudi Arabia “with full force”.
The Saudi-led coalition said its air defences intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles fired towards the capital by what its spokesman, Turki al-Malki, called the “terrorist Houthi militia”. AFP correspondents in Riyadh reported hearing explosions. Saudi officials did not respond to the Houthi claim of a direct hit, and there was no word on casualties or damage.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group had also targeted Abha International Airport with a drone and fired ballistic missiles at military transport aircraft at Najran airport and at King Khalid Air Base in Khamis Mushait. He claimed the group had repelled an advance by Saudi-backed forces near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. None of the claims could be independently verified.
Fire at Ras Tanura
Earlier on Tuesday, Saree said a ballistic missile had started a fire at Ras Tanura, the kingdom’s largest refinery on the Gulf coast. Ras Tanura and Yanbu on the Red Sea handle nearly all of Saudi Arabia’s oil exports. Saudi authorities did not confirm the attack, but Bloomberg News, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported that a fire near Saudi Aramco facilities at the terminal had been contained in the early hours. The coalition had said overnight that it intercepted three ballistic missiles aimed at the Eastern Province.
The Houthis, who have held Sanaa since 2014 and are accused of receiving Iranian support, have stepped up attacks on Saudi airports, oil facilities and military sites since the summer, opening another front in the wider US-Israeli war on Iran. The coalition said it had struck Houthi missile launchers, storage tunnels and a missile depot inside Yemen.
‘Full force’
In Islamabad, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told Geo News that the defence of Saudi Arabia was as important to Pakistan as the defence of its own territory. “We will defend Saudi Arabia with full force,” he said, calling the repeated targeting of Riyadh’s airport and attempted attacks on the Haramain Sharifain “very unfortunate”.
Asif said Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye had made a written commitment to respond together to any threat covered by their pact. “Now that three countries are involved, by agreement also, we will defend each other’s territory against any foreign aggression,” he said. He was speaking after Field Marshal Asim Munir joined Saudi and Turkish officials in Tehran for talks with Iran’s leadership, at which the four countries agreed to keep talking. Asif said some progress had been made and that possible US action had “definitely” been discussed, though he remained “slightly guarded” about the outcome.
Ankara moves to ratify
In Ankara, the Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs committee approved a bill ratifying the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed on August 7. Deputy Foreign Minister Levent Gümrükçü told lawmakers that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan had already completed their ratification. The bill still needs a vote of the full assembly.
Gümrükçü said the pact was purely defensive, did not target any country and was open to regional states that respect international law. It covers collective deterrence, joint training and exercises, defence-industry co-production and counterterrorism, he said. Committee chairman Fuat Oktay dismissed suggestions that it was an alternative to NATO. “Absolutely not,” he told reporters. A ruling-party lawmaker said last week that Ankara would seek a separate mandate to deploy military personnel to Saudi Arabia once the agreement is ratified.
