The Saudi-led coalition said Tuesday, Nov. 10, that it shot down Houthi missiles — a ballistic missile and a cruise missile fired toward Riyadh, plus a second ballistic missile aimed at southern Saudi Arabia — and a drone over the oil-rich Eastern Province, hours after a strike set a limited fire on the kingdom’s East-West oil pipeline. Residents in the capital heard explosions and received shelter alerts, Agence France-Presse reported, before civil defense said the danger had passed.
Major-General Turki al-Maliki, the coalition spokesperson, blamed Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis for the launches in a series of posts on X, AFP reported. The Houthis did not immediately comment, and they did not immediately claim the attacks, Reuters reported. The exchanges are the latest in a widening fight over Saudi oil infrastructure and Houthi-held areas of Yemen, a conflict that has intensified since the Iran war disrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
2 missiles toward Riyadh, the coalition said | 1 ballistic missile toward the south | 1 drone over the Eastern Province | 0 injuries reported in the pipeline fire
What the coalition says it intercepted
According to a Reuters dispatch published by Al-Monitor, the coalition said it destroyed a ballistic missile and a cruise missile fired toward the Saudi capital and, in a separate statement, a ballistic missile launched toward the south, which borders Yemen. Saudi Civil Defense had issued early-warning alerts for Riyadh and later for the southwestern cities of Abha and Khamis Mushait, then said the threat in each case had passed. The coalition later said it had also intercepted and destroyed a drone over the Eastern Province.
AFP, in a report carried by Al Jazeera, described the same pair of missiles over Riyadh and the ballistic missile over the south, and said multiple explosions were heard in the capital. Residents received text-message alerts instructing them to take shelter because of an “aerial threat,” then a later message saying the danger had passed. The two Western news agencies were consistent on the Riyadh and southern intercepts; Reuters, uniquely in the accounts reviewed for this report, also recorded the Eastern Province drone.
| Claimed target | What the coalition said it downed | Civil defense alerts |
|---|---|---|
| Riyadh | One ballistic missile and one cruise missile | Capital-wide shelter alert, then all-clear |
| Southern Saudi Arabia | One ballistic missile | Alerts for Abha and Khamis Mushait, then all-clear |
| Eastern Province | One drone, per Reuters | Not detailed in the Reuters account |
These are claims by a party to the conflict. Independent journalists have not, in the reporting available Tuesday morning, confirmed wreckage, casualties or the origin of every launch. No injuries were reported in Riyadh in the AFP and Reuters accounts.
A pipeline fire in Medina, then a night of alerts
On Monday, the East-West pipeline in Saudi Arabia’s Medina region was attacked again. A Saudi Ministry of Energy official told the state-run Saudi Press Agency that the strike caused a “limited fire” that was extinguished and that “pipeline operations were unaffected.” No injuries or deaths were reported, AFP said. The pipeline has become a more important export route because of restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S.-Israel war against Iran, and it has been attacked several times.
The Tuesday intercepts also follow a weekend strike on Riyadh. On Sunday, the Houthis said they had attacked the capital’s business district. Saudi officials said falling debris from an “attempted attack” caused minor damage to the Aramco Tower, and SPA released photographs of officials inspecting the building, damage The Boston Report described after the Nov. 8 incident. Reuters noted that Saudi Aramco’s headquarters in the Eastern Province suffered extensive damage in an attack in October.
Saba reports strikes on Sanaa; the coalition has not confirmed them
The Houthi-run Saba news agency reported that the Saudi-led coalition carried out airstrikes on Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, which the Houthis control, hitting the al-Mufazir gas facility in the Jadar district north of the city and a building belonging to the state oil company in the south. Saba said civil defense teams were working to put out a fire in gas trailers at the al-Mufazir station. Unverified claim, Saba (Houthi-run) Reuters and AFP both reported those claims and said Saudi authorities did not immediately confirm the strikes.
The Associated Press, writing from Sanaa, said overnight strikes hit a gas station and an oil facility, killing at least one person and injuring nine, according to residents and the Houthis. AP published a photograph, credited to Osamah Abdulrahman, of a damaged shop at King Mall in south Sanaa on Tuesday. The casualty figures remain attributed to residents and Houthi authorities; this report does not treat them as independently confirmed. The Houthis said last weekend that earlier Saudi strikes in Sanaa had killed 33 people, a claim that also carried a state-media warning and was not independently confirmed at the time.
A wider fight over oil routes and the Red Sea
Reuters said the latest launches come amid an escalation that followed a Houthi advance in September toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the chokepoint at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. Since then, the agency said, the Houthis have stepped up strikes on Saudi airports, ports and oil facilities, while Saudi Arabia has carried out airstrikes on Houthi targets. The coalition has been backing a Yemeni government offensive to retake territory.
The Eastern Province holds most of the kingdom’s oil and gas reserves and is home to Aramco’s headquarters. Southern Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen, has repeatedly been targeted as well. For war news readers following the Iran conflict, the pattern matters because attacks on the East-West pipeline and on Riyadh are now sitting alongside the naval blockade and oil-price shock that followed the wider war. As of Tuesday morning, the Saudi Energy Ministry’s account was that the latest pipeline fire had been put out and that flows were not interrupted.
Sources
- Al Jazeera, citing AFP: Saudi Arabia downs missiles fired at Riyadh after Houthi attack on pipeline
- Al-Monitor, publishing Reuters: Saudi-led coalition reports Houthi missile and drone interceptions; Saba reports Saudi strikes on Sanaa
- Business Recorder, Reuters: Saudi-led coalition says it intercepts two Houthi missiles fired towards Riyadh
- AP: Overnight strikes in Yemen kill at least 1 person and injure 9, and other Mideast news
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