A spokesman for Yemen's Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, said on Saturday that “The Air Force carried out an operation, dubbed ‘Operation Balance of Deterrence 2’, of a 10-drone squadron on two Saudi Aramco plants in Abqaiq and Khurais.”
“The targeting of Abqaiq and Khurais plants comes within the framework of the legitimate and natural response to the crimes of the Saudi aggression,” Alahed quoted him as saying.
Earlier, a spokesman for Saudi Arabia's interior ministry stated that the fire at two Saudi Aramco oil facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais was caused by drone attacks. The official added that the blaze was brought under control by the company's security forces.
Saudi Aramco is the state-owned oil enterprise which operates and controls the majority of the kingdom's refinery production and oilfields.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 91,000 lives over the past four and a half years.
The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN says over 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger.
MNA/PR