Houthis Hit Saudi Oil Sites as US-Iran War Spreads

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- Houthis fired missiles and drones at Saudi Aramco facilities in the coastal cities of Jizan and Yanbu on Sunday, with a large smoke column seen rising from Jizan after the attack
- Saudi Arabia struck the Houthi-held city of Hodeidah late Friday after the Houthis declared a naval blockade; Riyadh has not commented on damage to the Jizan refinery
- Greece's military intercepted two ballistic missiles aimed at Yanbu oil installations using a Patriot battery deployed in Saudi Arabia under an agreement with Riyadh
- United States has paused airstrikes on Iran since Friday after 13 consecutive overnight waves since July 11, with Trump saying Iran is 'talking to us right now' and 'they'd love to make a deal'
- Ukraine struck an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea on Saturday, killing one sailor and wounding another; Zelenskyy claimed Kyiv hit 'vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran, as well as a warship'
- Zelenskyy said Kyiv has detected 'active Russian satellite surveillance of the Gulf states and US military facilities' since July and passed the imagery to Tehran to help the IRGC target strikes
Why it matters: The simultaneous opening of Red Sea and Caspian Sea fronts pulls the US-Iran war into the world's two most critical oil shipping corridors, with the source warning that a blockade of both Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb would cause major economic damage worldwide and that Ukraine's strike on an Iranian vessel formally entangled Russia into the conflict.



