Riyadh hears explosions and missile intercepted by the coalition

Varies explosions were heard this morning in Riyadh, before the coalition led by Saudi Arabia announced the interception of a ballistic missile launched by the Yemeni Huthis against the Saudi capital.

Residents also received an alert message on mobile phones, advising them to seek shelter due to an “air threat”. Later, a second message from Saudi Civil Protection reported that the alert had been lifted.

“ The air defense intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the terrorist militia Huthi towards Riyadh”, as well as a cruise missile, reported the coalition on social network X.

Before, during the early hours, the same coalition had announced the destruction of a ballistic missile heading south of the country.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia announced that the East-West pipeline, which allows to route part of the country's oil exports without passing through the Strait of Ormuz, was the subject of an apparently attack by the Huthis rebels of Yemen.

The attack comes at a time when the Huthis offensives, supported by Iran, against the kingdom are intensifying.

The pipeline was hit in the Medina region, “provoking a small fire, which the emergency teams managed to extinguish, with no record of injured or dead and no impact on operations,” indicated a source of the Saudi Ministry of Energy, quoted by the local news agency SPA.

The source of the attack was not specified. By September, this infrastructure had been temporarily shut down following attacks attributed to drones from Iraq.

Riyadh increased the volumes of oil transported through this pipeline, with a capacity of seven million barrels a day since Tehran blocked the Strait of Ormuz in the context of the conflict between Iran and the United States.

The pipeline flows into the Red Sea, on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula, constituting an alternative to the kingdom's exports, the world's largest exporter of crude oil.

Since October, Saudi Arabia, in particular its oil infrastructure and airports, has been the target of almost daily Huthis attacks, fighting the internationally recognised Yemeni government, supported since 2015 by a military coalition led by the Saudi kingdom.

For its part, the coalition regularly bombards rebel positions in Yemen.

The conflict in Yemen was resumed in July after four years of calm, opening a new front in the Middle East war, triggered by U.S. and Israeli air strikes against Tehran in late February.

The Huthis, which control the capital, Sanaa, and vast areas of Yemen, announced on Monday Saudi attacks on an airport in Hodeida, a city under their control, on the coast of the Red Sea.