Aramco’s Riyadh offices came under attack on Sunday as Saudi Arabia confronts a fresh wave of strikes from the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. An administrative building of the Saudi Arabian state oil behemoth suffered limited damage due to falling shrapnel, according to the Ministry of Energy and state-backed Saudi Press Agency. There were no injuries or deaths, they said.
Aramco’s main office in the Saudi capital is in King Abdullah Financial District, which has been under remote work orders for about a month. Sunday’s incident adds to a series of strikes on Aramco infrastructure in recent weeks, including on its headquarters in Dhahran and the Shaybah oil field in the Eastern Province. It’s also perhaps the most significant targeting of Riyadh since Houthi militants struck the main airport there last month, killing more than a dozen people, injuring hundreds and snarling air traffic.
The weekend’s developments threaten to heap further pressure on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as he works to keep his multi-trillion dollar economic diversification plan on track while grappling with the fallout of near-daily Houthi attacks. Saudi-led forces said on Sunday they intercepted ballistic and cruise missiles launched toward Riyadh and thwarted attacks in the south and east. The events come with speculation mounting in the Middle East over the next developments in the US-Iran war and elections in Israel. Washington and Tehran are moving closer to a potential breakthrough in efforts to end the conflict after a monthslong stalemate, Bloomberg has reported. In Israel, election challenger Gadi Eisenkot moved a step closer to ending Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure after getting the chance to form a new government.
Source: Bloomberg Markets · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing