US holds off Iran strikes for first time in two weeks
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi militants opened fire on Saudi oil facilities in two ports on the Red Sea coast, but the United States stopped short of launching airstrikes on Iran for the first night in two weeks.
There was no explanation from the United States as to why it suddenly stopped attacks, which had been escalating for 13 nights since the collapse of an interim agreement to end hostilities, in retaliation for Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
“It looks like our beloved Iran had a peaceful night last night,” Ministry of Health spokesman Hossein Kermanpour said in a statement to X.
After a quiet night in Iran, there was no news on Saturday about Iran’s daily attacks on its Gulf neighbors in response to US attacks.
But attacks by Iran’s Houthi allies on Saudi Arabia were a sign that the war, which has disrupted energy supplies from the Gulf, could spread to a second major shipping route and reignite the civil war in Yemen.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group successfully hit fields belonging to Saudi state oil giant Aramco in Jizan and Yanbu.
In the video shared on social media and verified by Reuters, a large column of smoke is seen rising from the direction of the Aramco refinery in Jizan.
Two Asia-based trade sources said they had been informed of potential damage to fuel and oil storage sites in Jizan.
Greek security sources said that two ballistic missiles targeting oil facilities in Yanbu were destroyed by the US-made Patriot battery operated in Saudi Arabia within the scope of the agreement made by the Greek army with Saudi Arabia.
Yanbu, Saudi Arabia’s main oil port on the Red Sea, where millions of barrels a day are loaded, has become the main exit route for Saudi oil passing through the Strait of Hormuz, which is blockaded by Iran.
Jizan, on the Red Sea, near the Yemen border, is the site of a refinery with a capacity of 400,000 barrels per day.
Yemeni officials said the air force of the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government in Yemen, which has been opposing the Houthis for more than a decade, hit the Houthis’ missile and drone launch sites and weapons depots in Marib and Al Jawf provinces.
Previously, the Saudi-led military alliance announced that it bombed Houthi military positions in the Red Sea port of Hodeidah on Friday.
Yemeni officials said both sides in the Yemeni civil war are mobilizing their forces along the front.
Saudi Arabia leads an Arab coalition fighting Houthi militias for more than a decade since Iranian-backed fighters captured Yemen’s capital Sanaa.
The Yemeni civil war, in which hundreds of thousands of people died from conflicts and famine, has been paused since 2022 due to a ceasefire.
But that ceasefire broke down this month as the Houthis effectively joined the broader war waged by their Iranian allies since coming under attack by the United States and Israel.
The Houthi movement declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia last week, and Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said all Saudi oil facilities could be targets.
The move contributed to one of the sharpest increases in global oil prices of the war in recent days; Brent crude oil rose above US$100 per barrel for the first time since May.
US President Donald Trump on Friday promised “major military punishment” against Iran and the Houthi movement after the Houthis shot down two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea.
A temporary ceasefire aimed at ending the war effectively collapsed two weeks ago as US forces struck targets in southern Iran in response to Iran’s shipping disruption in the Strait of Hormuz.
