The Saudi-led coalition attacked the al-Sabahah fuel station in Sanaa on Tuesday evening, along with other sites in the Yemeni capital, Hodeidah and Dhamar, the coalition said in a statement — carrying out the operation it had warned civilians about hours earlier. Houthi-run Al-Masirah television reported the station had been targeted, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Sanaa reported hearing the explosion there, and the Yemen Petroleum Company said the facility held no fuel stocks. No casualty figures were reported in the sources opened for this article, and the Houthis renewed their warnings against Saudi Aramco facilities in response.
What did the coalition say it hit?
The coalition said in its Tuesday-evening statement that it attacked the station and other sites in an operation aimed at neutralising the Houthis' ability to threaten Saudi Arabia, Yemen and international waterways, and that the group was using sites in Sanaa, Hodeidah and Dhamar to supply its arsenal of missiles and drones for attacks on the kingdom and on commercial vessels in the Red Sea, Reuters reported. Al Jazeera's correspondent Yousef Mawry reported two further strike campaigns beyond Sanaa: on oil storage tanks at the Ras Isa port and on an oil station in Houthi-controlled Hodeidah province. The Guardian reported that the Ras Isa depots were struck in repeated waves and that Saudi aircraft had also hit a site in the Razih border district west of Saada that Saudi Arabia believed to be a Houthi leadership hideout; those two details appeared in the Guardian's reporting and not in the Reuters or Al Jazeera accounts opened for this article. The Yemen Petroleum Company said the al-Sabahah station did not currently hold any petroleum products and that targeting it did not affect oil reserves or supply chains, Reuters reported.
How did the Houthis respond?
The Houthis had already answered the morning's evacuation order before the strikes landed, and they repeated the same warnings afterwards. Military spokesman Yahya Saree said any strike on Sanaa would bring a harsh and painful response in Riyadh, and named the Aramco headquarters in Dhahran, King Khalid International Airport and an Aramco-affiliated refinery in Riyadh as sites whose workers and neighbours should evacuate, Al Jazeera reported. The group also renewed its earlier warnings to oil workers across Saudi Arabia to stay away from sites that could be targets, Reuters reported. Al Jazeera noted that the Houthis had not yet launched any new attack at the time of its reporting, while the coalition said its forces had intercepted three drones north of Riyadh earlier on Tuesday. These are the two sides' statements, published as such: no new Houthi attack on an Aramco facility had been confirmed at publication time.
What did Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States say on Tuesday?
Saudi Arabia's cabinet, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, said the Houthis would face consequences for their repeated attacks on the kingdom, Reuters and Al Jazeera reported. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday that Ankara would stand by the kingdom, the Turkish presidency said, according to Reuters; Turkey and Pakistan signed a mutual defence pact with Saudi Arabia this summer, though Turkey's parliament has not yet ratified it. US President Donald Trump told reporters he had spoken to Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday, said the Houthis were behaving very badly, and said he might ask Erdogan to intervene in support of Saudi interests, Reuters reported. Washington has so far declined Saudi efforts to bring it directly into the war against the Houthis, Reuters reported, and Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araqchi has offered to mediate between Riyadh and the Houthis.
This is not financial advice. The coalition's account of what the struck sites were used for, the oil company's account of the Sanaa station's contents, and the Houthis' warnings are each published as the claims of the side that made them. No casualty figures for Tuesday evening's strikes were reported in the sources opened for this article.
