DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (Dispatches) — Satellite photos obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday appeared to show the aftermath of a retaliatory attack on an oil facility in the capital of the United Arab Emirates claimed by Yemen’s armed forces.
The retaliation brought the long-running Yemen war into Emirati territory on Monday. That conflict raged on overnight with Saudi-led airstrikes pounding Yemen’s capital Sana’a, killing and wounding civilians.
Meanwhile, fears over new disruptions to global energy supplies after the Abu Dhabi retaliatory attack pushed benchmark Brent crude to its highest price in years.
The images by Planet Labs PBC analyzed by the AP showed smoke rising over an Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. fuel depot in the Mussafah neighborhood of Abu Dhabi after the attack. Another image taken shortly after appears to show scorch marks and white fire-suppressing foam deployed on the grounds of the depot.
The Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., known by the acronym ADNOC, is the state-owned energy firm that provides much of the wealth of the UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula and also home to Dubai.
The retaliatory attack reportedly killed two peopl as three tankers at the site exploded, police said. Six people were also wounded at the facility, which is near Al-Dhafra Air Base, a massive Emirati installation that is also home to American and French forces.
Another fire also struck Abu Dhabi International Airport. Journalists have not been able to view the sites targeted and state-run media have not published photographs of the areas.
Police described the assault as a suspected drone attack. Yemen’s army spokesman said the country’s forces used cruise and ballistic missiles in the retaliation.
Brigadier General Yahya Saree said “Operation Hurricane Yemen” was successfully carried out with five ballistic missiles and a large number of drones in response to the recent escalation of the U.S.-Saudi-Emirati aggression.
“Operation Hurricane Yemen targeted the Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports, the Musaffah oil refinery in Abu Dhabi and a number of important and sensitive Emirati sites and facilities,” he said.
The spokesman warned foreign citizens and their companies, as well as other residents of the UAE to stay away from strategic sites and facilities for their own safety.
“We will not hesitate to expand the scope of targets to include more important sites and facilities in the coming period, declaring that the UAE is an unsafe state as long as its aggressive escalation against Yemen continues,” Saree underlined.
Meanwhile Tuesday, the Saudi-led coalition waging a war on Yemen announced it had started a bombing campaign targeting Sana’a.
Overnight videos released by Yemen showed damage, with a medical source and residents as saying the airstrikes killed at least 20 people.
One airstrike hit the house of Brig. Gen. Abdalla Kassem al-Junaid, who heads the Air Academy. The strike at Libby neighborhood of the Yemeni capital killed 14 people, including him, his wife, his 25-year-old son and other family members.
At least three families were living in the house. Another adjunct house with a four-member family was damaged.
Al-Masirah TV said the kingdom had carried out more than 50 air raids on several areas across Yemen, including the central Ma’rib province, over the past 24 hours.
The Saudi-led coalition has faced international criticism for airstrikes hitting civilian targets during the war.
For hours Monday, Emirati officials did not acknowledge the Yemeni claims over the Abu Dhabi attack. Senior Emirati diplomat Anwar Gargash broke the silence on Twitter, saying that Emirati authorities were handling the attack with “transparency and responsibility.”
Fears over future attacks reaching the UAE, a major oil producer and OPEC member, helped push Brent crude oil prices to their highest level in seven years. On Tuesday, a barrel of Brent crude traded at over $87.50 a barrel, a price unseen since October 2014.
The damage to the UAE oil facilities in Abu Dhabi “raises the question of even more supply disruptions in the region in 2022,” said Louise Dickson, an analyst at Rystad Energy.
Although the UAE has largely withdrawn its own forces from Yemen, it is still actively engaged in the conflict and supports the Saudi-led war.
The Emirati-backed Giants Brigades occupied the province of Shabwa earlier this month in a bid to prevent Yemeni forces from completing their recapture of the entire northern half of Yemen and driving out Saudi mercenaries and Daesh terrorists.
While Emirati troops have been killed over the course of the conflict, now in its eight year, the war has not directly affected daily life in the wider UAE, a country with a vast foreign workforce.
But Yemen’s popular Ansarullah resistance movement warned the UAE should brace for more painful retaliatory strikes f Abu Dhabi does not end its involvement in the atrocious military aggression.
“The UAE should expect more painful attacks if it does not stop attacking Yemen,” Muhammad al-Bukhaiti, a member of Ansarullah’s political bureau, told Al Jazeera.
“Abu Dhabi is recommended to give up its futile actions in Yemen; otherwise its hands and those of its mercenaries will be cut off from the country,” Ansarullah spokesman Muhammad Abdulsalam warned.
Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and Kata’ib Hezbollah, both subdivisions of Iraq’s Hashd al-Sha’abi, also issued warnings to the UAE.
“We also warn the rulers of the small country of the UAE, who have compromised with the Zionists, about the consequences of interfering in Iraqi affairs and sowing discord among our free and honorable nation,” Asa’ib Secretary General Qais Khazali said.
“The Iraqis have not allowed you or anyone else, and they will never let you keep violating Iraq’s sovereignty and threaten its national security and peace.”