The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen targeted Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil company on Saturday with missiles and drones, marking a significant escalation in the second front of the ongoing Iran conflict.
President Trump issued new warnings against Iran this week, threatening to hit one power plant or bridge for every ship they hit in the Strait of Hormuz after Iran attacked another tanker near the coast of Oman on Tuesday.
The President has further said that he is weighing a “massive” attack on Iran, which would be “bigger than ever before,” he said. “They haven’t received enough pain yet,” Trump said as US forces continued 13 hitting Iran nightly for nearly two weeks.
US forces on Thursday completed a 13th consecutive night of attacks against Iranian military capabilities in and around the Strait of Hormuz since the fighting resumed earlier this month.
Video from CENTCOM shows the most recent attacks from the nearly two-week-long airstrike campaign:
The Houthis’ latest attack on Saudi Arabia’s energy infrastructure comes after they attacked two ships in the Red Sea while imposing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabian ports and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Per CBS:
The Houthis, an Iran-backed paramilitary group in Yemen, announced strikes on Saudi oil company Aramco’s facilities in Jizan and Yanbu on Saturday.
The Houthis fired “dozens of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones,” which successfully hit their targets, according to spokesperson Yahya Saree. The strikes or whether they were successful could not be independently verified.
The group also confirmed the military blockade of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the southern exit point of the Red Sea, remains in effect. The Houthis struck two Saudi-flagged commercial tankers in the Red Sea earlier this week, but had not struck any ships since then, bringing some calm to the region.
“We will not hesitate to expand our operations and escalate our actions based on developments in the coming hours and days, within the equation of a blockade for a blockade and an escalation for an escalation,” Saree said in a statement.
“There is no closure of the Bab al-Mandab Strait as some promote, and the announced Yemeni position by the Yemeni Armed Forces is limited to a naval blockade targeting only the Saudi side in response to its siege of Yemen and its refusal to accept any fair approach to a solution that guarantees the security, sovereignty, and independence of the Yemeni people,” Houthi negotiator Mohammed Abdusalam said Friday on X.
لا إغلاق لباب المندب كما يروج البعض وموقف اليمن المعلن من قبل القوات المسلحة اليمنية يقتصر على حظر بحري يطال الجانب السعودي فقط ردا على حصاره اليمن ورفضه القبول بأي مقاربة منصفة للحل تضمن أمن وسيادة واستقلال الشعب اليمني .
— محمد عبدالسلام (@abdusalamsalah) July 24, 2026
As The Gateway Pundit reported, President Trump threatened on Thursday to “hold Iran responsible” and inflict “major military punishment” upon Iran and the Houthis after the Iran-backed group began targeting shipping in the Red Sea on Wednesday.
“The U.S. will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves,” the President said.
US forces also took out an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman on Saturday amid the US Navy blockade of Iranian ports.
Video from the mission released by CENTCOM shows US forces conducting a “verification boarding” on a Comoros-flagged tanker in the Arabian Sea and attacking a Mozambique-flagged tanker in the Gulf of Oman after it “attempted to violate the blockade multiple times.”
WATCH:
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