RIYADH AIRPORT, ARAMCO FACILITIES HIT
Yemen's Twin Blows: Rout on Coast, Strikes Deep Inside Saudi Arabia
SANA’A -- Yemen's Ansarullah-led armed forces killed and wounded dozens of Saudi mercenaries, including several commanders, and destroyed more than 22 armored vehicles on Friday, repelling for the second time in hours an attempted advance from Lahij province toward the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
Yemeni missiles and drones also struck deep inside Saudi Arabia, shutting down Riyadh's main international airport, and igniting fires at Aramco facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais that satellite imagery showed burning into Friday morning.
The twin developments — a battlefield rout on Yemen's western coast and a widening campaign of ballistic missile and drone strikes on Saudi territory — marked the most severe escalation in the nearly 12-year war and underscored Ansarullah's transformation from a defensive force into one capable of projecting power across the Arabian Peninsula.
Brigadier General Yahya Saree, spokesman for the Yemeni armed forces, said in a statement carried by Al-Masirah television that Yemeni forces, "for the second time in a matter of hours, thwarted and pushed back an attack by Saudi-backed forces attempting to advance from the Lahij area toward Bab al-Mandeb."
"Thanks to God, these mercenaries were unable to make any advance," Saree said, adding that the attacking forces were targeted with "large numbers of ballistic missiles, artillery strikes, and heavy weapons, resulting in the destruction of more than 22 armored vehicles and the killing and wounding of dozens, including a number of their commanders."
He said more than 30 ambulances were dispatched to Aden to transport the killed and wounded, describing the scale of casualties as indicative of the losses inflicted on Saudi-backed forces in just a few hours.
A Yemeni military source told Saba news agency that Yemeni forces also expelled Saudi mercenaries from the Jabal Habashi region in Ta’izz, and that areas under Yemeni control expanded by more than 2,000 square kilometers, in addition to the roughly 5,000 square kilometers already held along the western coast stretching from Mokha through Bab al-Mandeb to Dhubab.
Deep Strikes Inside Saudi Arabia
The battlefield gains came as Yemen's armed forces continued a campaign of ballistic missile and drone strikes targeting strategic sites inside the kingdom.
The Yemeni military said it targeted King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh with two cruise missiles and one ballistic missile, Najran Airport with one ballistic missile, and Khamis Mushait Air Base with one ballistic missile on Thursday.
Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation confirmed that three Saudi nationals were killed and several others injured in two attacks on the airport.
The authority said the first attack targeted airport facilities, while the second struck an aircraft belonging to Saudi state carrier Saudia. The injuries ranged from minor to severe, and the attacks caused material damage.
The disruption rippled across the kingdom's aviation network. According to aviation analytics company Cirium, cited by Bloomberg, around 300 scheduled flights to and from Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport were cancelled on Thursday, with 192 delayed.
At Jeddah airport, 96 flights were cancelled and 199 delayed, while Dammam airport recorded 23 cancellations and 71 delays. Reuters reported that Germany's Lufthansa and India's Air India suspended flights to and from Riyadh, while Philippine Airlines and two other Indian airlines also announced cancellations.
Strikes on Energy Infrastructure
Separate reports citing satellite imagery pointed to fires and damage at several Saudi energy facilities.
Images from NASA's VIIRS system reportedly detected unusually intense heat signals at Saudi Aramco facilities in Abqaiq, in the Eastern Province, with thick smoke visible from around 6 a.m. Thursday.
Satellite imagery also showed continuing fires at the Khurais oil field and apparent damage at Aramco facilities south of Riyadh, including a destroyed fuel storage tank and a dark patch potentially indicating an oil leak.
Warnings to Airlines and Oil Workers
Yemeni government spokesman Omar al-Bukhaiti urged airlines to stay away from Saudi airports to protect passengers and crews, warning that the kingdom's airspace and airports — except those over the holy cities of Mecca and Medina — have become part of Yemen's military operations.
Al-Bukhaiti also called on employees at Saudi oil facilities to evacuate areas designated as targets by Yemen's armed forces to protect their lives.
He warned that Saudi Arabia's opening of a war front in the Bab al-Mandeb region and turning it into a scene of direct confrontation threatened maritime navigation, and said Riyadh would bear responsibility for all consequences.
Al-Bukhaiti condemned Saudi attacks on civilians, citing strikes on passengers travelling along roads in Taiz and Ibb provinces.
He said an attack on passengers along the Sharjeb–Al-Turbah road in Ta’izz killed and wounded members of an eight-person family, including women and children, while an attack on the Al-Siyani road in Ibb left three injured.
He described these as evidence of Saudi Arabia's approach to targeting civilians, noting they occurred around the 10th anniversary of the 2016 bombing of a mourning hall in Sana'a that left more than 1,000 people dead or wounded.
The escalation follows a July 20 declaration by the Sana'a administration imposing a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia in response to the nearly 12-year siege on Yemen.
Yemeni forces have made a lightning advance across Yemen's coastal plain over the past month, reinforcing control over the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait. The conflict
traces back to March 2015, when Saudi Arabia and a U.S.-backed coalition launched a military campaign and blockade aimed at reinstalling a favorable regime in Sana'a — an objective that, despite years of bombardment and advanced Western weaponry, remains unachieved.