Houthi forces said missiles and drones set fires at an Aramco site in Riyadh. The Saudi-led coalition called that claim misleading, while Yemen's Saudi-backed government announced a wider campaign.
Yemen's Houthis said they attacked an Aramco facility in Riyadh with ballistic missiles and drones, Al Jazeera reported. Spokesman Yahya Saree said on Saturday that the strikes were precise and started fires. A large plume of smoke was seen near an Aramco facility in the city.
The New York Times reported that videos it verified showed a fire at an Aramco oil refinery in Riyadh. Major General Turki al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, told Saudi media the Houthi claim of targeting Riyadh was misleading.
Early Sunday the coalition said its forces carried out 97 strikes against Houthi reinforcements on the Tor al-Baha front and the Taiz axis. Colonel Majed Abdullah al-Nazili, speaking for Yemen's government forces, said the attacks targeted at least 260 Houthi fighters and destroyed or disabled 44 vehicles. Those figures come from government spokesmen and were not independently confirmed.
The Times reported that Rashad al-Alimi, head of the internationally recognized government, said in a televised speech that the government was seeking to retake territory lost to the Houthis over 12 years. Fighting has intensified after the Houthis took parts of the Red Sea coast.
The competing accounts leave the cause of the Riyadh fire disputed in official statements even where footage shows a blaze at an Aramco site.