On Friday, the Saudi-led military coalition announced the interception and destruction of a ballistic missile launched by the Ansar Allah group towards the capital, Riyadh, along with two drones that targeted the southern region of the Kingdom, in light of the continued attacks launched by the group on Saudi territory for weeks.
The official spokesman for the coalition forces, Turki Al-Maliki, said that the air defenses intercepted and destroyed the ballistic missile and the two drones, without providing additional details regarding the locations of their interceptions.
The announcement comes a day after the coalition announced the interception and destruction of four drones in the Riyadh and Medina regions, in a series of interceptions announced over the past days.
The military spokesman for the Ansar Allah group, Yahya Saree, announced on Thursday the implementation of several operations targeting, during the previous two days, the Saudi Ministry of Defense in Riyadh, an Aramco facility in Yanbu, and King Fahd International Airports in Dammam and Abha, in the south of the Kingdom.
Mutual attacks between the group and Saudi Arabia have escalated since the collapse of the truce that had been in effect in Yemen since 2022, and the fighting renewed last July, coinciding with the war in the Middle East.
The group, supported by Iran, launched a massive attack in September during which it took control of areas that were under the control of the internationally recognized Yemeni government along the Red Sea coast, including the Bab al-Mandab Strait area.
It also announced the imposition of a naval blockade on Saudi ships, in response to what it considers a siege of the areas under its control in Yemen.
Evacuation of employees from Aramco headquarters
Two informed sources told Agence France-Presse on Thursday that essential employees who remained working at the main headquarters of the Aramco oil company in the city of Dhahran, eastern Saudi Arabia, were asked to vacate the building and work from their homes until further notice.
One of the sources said that the evacuation order was issued without specifying the reasons, while the two sources explained that the residential areas in the complex were not closed or evacuated.
The Saudi Ministry of Energy announced that an administrative building belonging to the company was targeted on October 13, which led to the outbreak of a limited fire, without any injuries or deaths recorded.
For about three weeks, Saudi airports and oil facilities have been subjected to almost daily attacks with missiles and drones.
The most violent was the attack that targeted Riyadh Airport on October 10, killing 13 people and wounding about 300 others.
The Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation also announced that two people were killed and eight others were injured in an attack on Dammam Airport, while the Ministry of Energy announced that two people were killed and two others were injured as a result of falling shrapnel following the interception of a drone that targeted a facility in the Shaybah oil field.
According to a census conducted by Agence France-Presse based on official data, the death toll as a result of attacks on Saudi airports since the beginning of October has risen to 22 people.
Oil prices rise by more than 1 percent amid fears of supply disruption
Oil prices rose by more than one percent, Friday, after the Ansar Allah group's attacks on Saudi Arabia raised fears of further disruptions in energy supplies coming from the Middle East.
Brent crude futures rose by $1.30, or 1.2 percent, to reach $114.47 per barrel, by 06:39 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose by $1.37, or 1.4 percent, to reach $100.84 per barrel.
Brent crude, which closed Thursday at its highest levels since May 4, is heading towards recording gains for the third week in a row, while US crude is heading towards achieving gains for the second week in a row.
The rise in prices came after Saudi Aramco requested, on Thursday, the evacuation of its headquarters in the city of Dhahran in the east of the Kingdom, according to what Reuters reported, in light of the escalation of confrontations between Saudi Arabia and the Ansar Allah group in Yemen.
Analysts at ING Bank said in a note on Friday that the markets are increasingly concerned about the possibility of renewed escalation in the Gulf, which may threaten oil flows, which have so far shown a remarkable ability to continue despite the tensions.
IMF: The impact of the attacks on the Saudi economy is still limited
Despite the concerns witnessed in the energy markets, the Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund, Jihad Azour, said that the impact of the Ansar Allah group’s attacks on the Saudi economy is still limited so far, thanks to the strength of domestic demand and the strength of the public sector.
Azour explained, in statements to Agence France-Presse, that the Kingdom enjoys “strong internal demand and a solid public sector, so the impact is limited,” despite the continued risks resulting from geopolitical uncertainty.
He pointed out that Saudi oil shipments are still flowing, despite the restrictions imposed on them as a result of the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and the Ansar Allah group’s announcement of imposing a blockade on Saudi ships in the Red Sea.
But the International Monetary Fund expects the Saudi economy to contract by 3.3 percent during 2026, as a result of the repercussions of the war that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.
The Fund stated, in its regional report issued Thursday, that all Gulf countries, except for the Sultanate of Oman, witnessed a decline in hydrocarbon production.
The Fund expects the region's economy to contract by 4.8 percent this year, before it rebounds with growth of about 9.1 percent in 2027, despite the continued state of geopolitical uncertainty and the disruption of indirect talks between Washington and Tehran.
Azour warned that resuming fighting and causing more damage to infrastructure would raise the economic cost of the war.
He said that the Fund's expectations are based on the assumption that oil prices will remain stable at higher levels than they were before the war, but they are much lower than the levels they may reach in the event of escalation of tensions or the expansion of the conflict.
Egypt calls for exploring political solutions
