Yemen's Houthi Rebels Say They Struck Saudi Oil Facility With New Type Of Cruise Missilehttps://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37783/yemens-houthi-rebels-say-they-struck-saudi-oil-facility-with-new-type-of-cruise-missileThe Houthi strike on Jeddah on the Red Sea came amid reports of a secret meeting between Saudi and Israeli officials elsewhere in the country.
Satellite imagery shows what looks to be damage to an oil tank at a facility belonging to the Saudi Aramco oil company in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah on the Red Sea. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen had earlier claimed to have fired a ground-launched Quds-2 cruise missile, a weapon the group claims it put into service just recently, at that site overnight. The strike certainly seems to have been meant to send a signal and came amid reports that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had secretly met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad in the Red Sea coastal resort town of Neom, much further to the north.
The strike, which occurred on the night of November 22nd, 2020, underscores the Houthis' ever-increasing ability to hit targets deeper inside Saudi Arabia with cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as so-called "suicide drones." Jeddah is more than 390 miles from the Yemeni border, at closest, and the Yemeni militants claimed the Quds-2 flew just over 400 miles to reach its target.
Cruise missiles were also a notable feature in the unprecedented strikes on Saudi oil infrastructure in the northeastern portion of the country in September 2019, which the Houthis claimed responsibility for, but which the United States has accused Iran of carrying out directly. ... Most notably oil tanks were also targeted with significant precision in those previous strikes, something that appears to have now happened again.
It's also interesting to note that Jeddah is roughly the same distance away from Yemen as the Aramco sites in Abqaiq and Khurais, the facilities struck in September of last year, are from southern Iraq and northwestern Iran.
The September 2019 strikes were especially significant development as they showed how even a non-state actor could hold sensitive and otherwise important facilities and infrastructure at risk using lower-tier cruise missiles, as well as suicide drones. The Houthis, in particular, are among the most capable groups in this regard.
... The strike also notably came as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, better known simply as MBS, in Neom, something that was publicized and that the Yemeni rebels would have been aware of.
Israeli media outlets have reported that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Mossad chief, Yossi Cohen, also secretly flew to Neom to meet with MBS, either together with Pompeo and his entourage, or on the sidelines of that meeting.
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... which means they'll need a false flag operation to get the ball rolling ...
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Oil Tanker In Red Sea Struck In Mine Attack With Similarities To Past Iranian Strikeshttps://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37834/oil-tanker-in-red-sea-struck-in-mine-attack-with-similarities-to-past-iranian-strikesA Maltese-flagged oil tanker was the victim of an attack in the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia earlier today. The damage was attributed to a naval mine, but breached the ship's outer hull above the waterline, which might point to a limpet mine. Limpet mines were employed in a series of attacks on tanker ships that Iran or its regional proxies carried out in the Gulf of Oman last year. So far, no group has claimed responsibility, but Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have targeted commercial ships in the Red Sea in the past.
The MT Agrari, which is flagged in Malta, but operated by a Greek shipping company, TMS Tankers, came under attack early on Nov. 25, 2020, local time. Ambrey, a private maritime security company based in the United Kingdom, said that the tanker had originally set sail from Rotterdam in the Netherlands carrying an unspecified cargo, which it had unloaded at the Shuqaiq Steam Power Plant prior to the attack, according to the Associated Press. Shuqaiq is situated on Saudi Arabia's southern Red Sea coastline around 60 miles north of the city of Jazan and less than 80 miles, at closest, from the Yemeni border.
"The explosion took place in port limits and punctured the hull of the vessel," Ambrey said in its own statement, appearing to refer to the port facilities at Shuqaiq. At the time of writing, the ship was still afloat and there were
no official reports of oil or anything else leaking out into the Red Sea. Satellite imagery has emerged on social media showing what could be Agrari still at Shuqaiq's dock and indicators of a potential fluid leak of some kind.