Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday (October 14, 2026) that an attack on an Aramco building in the kingdom’s east sparked a “limited fire” and that debris from intercepted Houthi missiles wounded four people in the capital Riyadh.
An AFP correspondent reported that many civilians in Sanaa, fearing shortages, rushed to queue in front of fuel stations after the coalition warning. Then, we heard an explosion”. “People were calm; no one was speaking. We were scared and all looking up at the sky,” he added, requesting anonymity. After Houthi strikes on Saudi airports and energy sites in recent days, the coalition issued its first evacuation order in the Yemeni capital since the war flared in July, before attacking the Yemen Petroleum Company facility on Sanaa’s outskirts. Mr.
It came hours after the Saudi-led coalition battling Yemen’s Houthis said it had intercepted several missiles on Tuesday (October 13, 2026) evening, including over Riyadh. Saudi Arabia’s civil defence agency said on Wednesday (October 14, 2026) that four people — two women, a man and a child — were wounded by debris from two intercepted Houthi cruise missiles in the capital and that 15 homes were damaged. Earlier on Tuesday (October 13, 2026), the coalition struck oil sites across western Yemen, in response to the deadliest attack on the kingdom’s soil in years. A strike on Riyadh’s international airport on Saturday (October 10, 2026) left 13 people dead and operations suspended in the worst attack since 2015.
A Saudi Energy Ministry official said an administrative building belonging to oil giant Aramco in Dhahran was struck on Tuesday (October 13, 2026) evening, resulting in a “limited fire” but “no casualties or fatalities”. The strikes in Yemen’s Sanaa and the western provinces of Dhamar and Saada targeted facilities used to “supply the war effort” by the Houthis to “threaten the kingdom, Yemen, the southern Red Sea and waterways”, coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki wrote on X. A powerful explosion then rang out in the Saudi capital, with a phone alert sent to residents saying “the city of Riyadh is facing a hostile aerial threat”. a witness told AFP he “saw a projectile cutting across the sky” above a mall, saying it left “a yellowish trail of light followed by a trail of smoke While walking down a major avenue in Riyadh. An AFP correspondent in Sanaa reported an explosion, while a breaking news alert on the Houthi-affiliated Al-Masirah TV channel said “Saudi aggression” targeted the oil firm. The Saudi cabinet vowed in a meeting earlier on Tuesday (October 13, 2026), led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that it “will not allow its security or freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait to be threatened”. Many countries have issued travel warnings to their citizens in Saudi Arabia, most recently France, which told its citizens to avoid Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam airports. Bukhaiti said the purpose of the campaign against Saudi targets was to send a message to the crown prince “that he can no longer wage aggression against Yemen from a safe position”.
The Houthis had earlier issued a new threat to target Riyadh’s international airport, a refinery, and an Aramco facility in Dammam if the strike went ahead, calling for citizens to avoid them.
The ministry said no injuries were reported. The fighting marked a fresh escalation in the widening Middle East crisis and came shortly after the Saudi coalition reported a series of alerts for incoming missiles heading for the Eastern Province, a major oil-producing region, and the capital Riyadh. The fighting marked a fresh escalation in the widening Middle East crisis The attack came as the Iranian-backed Houthis and the Saudi coalition fighting them exchanged attacks Tuesday night.
The Saudi-led coalition has supported Yemen’s government militarily against the Houthis since 2015 in a long-running civil war that has created a dire humanitarian crisis.
Traffic in perennially gridlocked Riyadh was noticeably lighter this week as remote learning for all schools and work-from-home orders for some companies took effect, according to AFP journalists. The fighting marked a fresh escalation in the widening Middle East crisis Earlier reporting noted: A limited fire broke out Tuesday in an administrative building at Aramco, one of the world’s largest oil facilities, that was targeted in an attack in the country’s Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy said.
Earlier reporting noted: The attack came as the Iranian-backed Houthis and the Saudi coalition fighting them exchanged attacks Tuesday night.
Saudi Arabia faces a major economic contraction this year, with GDP expected to shrink 3.3%, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday (October 13, 2026), predicting a regional drop over Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Suspected cholera cases tripled there in three weeks, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday (October 13, 2026), warning that the growing disease burden was straining hospitals already treating war casualties. The kingdom was already facing headwinds from Iran’s chokehold on the Hormuz strait since the start of the West Asia war in February, when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. But the restart in July of Yemen’s frozen war has further roiled the kingdom and brought the fight to its own soil. Houthi attacks have also targeted oil tankers in the Red Sea — Saudi Arabia’s alternative export route. In Yemen, the renewed fighting was fuelling the risk of infectious disease outbreaks. The Riyadh airport attack had prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to say he was considering joining Saudi strikes against the Houthis. The Houthis warned the U.S. against intervention, with political bureau member Mohammed Al Bukhaiti telling AFP they would target American interests in the region.
He wrote on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday (October 13, 2026) that “the Houthis are behaving very badly”, accusing them of acting “probably at the behest of Iran”. “I’ll be there after the elections, and I will never forget!” he wrote, referring to next month’s midterms.
