The pro-Iranian Houthis claim responsibility for attacks on a Saudi refinery and a Yemeni port

Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility Sunday for a strike against a Saudi refinery on the Red Sea coast, in a new attack against the petro-monarchy allied with the Yemeni government.

According to two military sources, they also fired ballistic missiles and drones at Mokha, a Yemeni port controlled by the internationally recognized government, an attack which they also claimed responsibility for.

In Saudi Arabia, rebels targeted the refinery of oil giant Aramco, located in Jazan (southwest), with a "precise strike" by drone, according to their military spokesman Yahya Saree.

The attack, he said, was launched in response to Saudi incursions into northwest Yemen.

The Saudi Ministry of Energy reported a fire at the site, which caused no casualties, without specifying the cause. "Aramco's security teams extinguished the fire, which broke out at dawn," it stated.

Hostilities in the Yemeni conflict resumed last month, for the first time since a truce negotiated in 2022, in a new stage of the regional conflagration following the war between the United States and Iran.

The Houthis have since repeatedly struck Saudi infrastructure - Jazan was already targeted last month.

They also announced at the end of July a blockade of Saudi ships in the Red Sea, which has become a vital passage for the transport of hydrocarbons since the Strait of Hormuz was sealed off by Iran, on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula. They have since struck several ships.

In Mokha, air defenses were activated, one of the military sources said. Residents confirmed to AFP that they had heard explosions in the area, with one reporting "six consecutive explosions" in the port.

- Deadliest attacks since 2022 -

Since the resumption of fighting, the rebel movement has also attacked government forces, which are supported by Saudi Arabia.

On Friday, at least eight members of these troops and two civilians were killed in the oil-rich province of Marib (central), the day after the deadliest strikes since 2022, which had killed 58 people.

The Houthis claimed to have acted in retaliation for what they said was the recent strengthening of Yemeni troops backed by Saudi Arabia, which intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government.

The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and plunged the country, the poorest in the Arabian Peninsula, into a serious humanitarian crisis.

The conflict was reignited in July, after strikes attributed to Riyadh against the Houthi-controlled Sanaa airport, where Iran had sent a plane carrying a rebel delegation without seeking permission from the kingdom, which controls Yemeni airspace.

A Washington ally, Riyadh has also been targeted by Iranian airstrikes several times in recent months. Against this backdrop of regional tension, and to strengthen its security alliances, Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense pact with Pakistan and Turkey on Friday.