A building belonging to Saudi oil giant Aramco, located in the financial district of the capital Riyadh, has been damaged by a missile attack.
The strike in the King Abdullah financial district was reported after the Saudi Civil Defense issued an early warning of a potential threat to the city.
A video circulating on social media and verified by CNN shows damage to several floors of the Aramco building, with windows blown out. But Saudi officials said the impact was minimal.
“An administrative building belonging to Saudi Aramco in Riyadh was the subject of an attempted attack,” on Sunday, according to the official Saudi Press Agency, citing a source at the Saudi Ministry of Energy.
“The incident resulted in falling shrapnel which caused minor damage to the building, with no injuries or deaths,” the agency reported.
However, a witness said he saw ambulances heading towards the area.
CNN has contacted the Ministry of Information by email for further details.
The Houthis, who have fired missiles and drones at several targets across Saudi Arabia over the past three months, have not claimed responsibility.
Several loud booms were heard in the Saudi capital Riyadh early Sunday.
The Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted and destroyed two cruise missiles in Riyadh and the southern region. Coalition spokesperson Turki al-Maliki wrote in an article on X that air defenses also “intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles launched by the Houthi terrorist militia towards Riyadh.”
The missile attacks on Riyadh came a day after Yemen’s Houthi-run health ministry said Saudi airstrikes had “killed” at least 33 people near the capital Sanaa, including women and children.
“We will punish the Saudi regime for its crimes against the Yemeni people,” Mahdi al-Mashat, a senior Houthi official, said on Saturday.
Last month, 13 people were killed in a missile strike on Riyadh International Airport, and several others died in other airport strikes.
The Houthis have said they will continue to fire missiles and drones against Saudi Arabia as long as the Kingdom carries out airstrikes against the parts of Yemen they control and imposes a blockade against its territory.
Saudi Arabia spent $83 billion on defense last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, placing it among the world’s ten biggest military spenders. It has acquired American fighter jets as well as Patriot and THAAD air defense systems, as well as a range of advanced weapons from France and the United Kingdom.
But the Saudis have a lot to defend: a country about a fifth the size of the United States, with threats from three sides: from Iran, Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and the Houthis.
The Saudis intercept numerous missiles and drones fired by the Houthis. But some get away with it. The Department of Defense faces difficult choices in distributing existing systems, with so many installations vulnerable to attack.
The Houthis have learned to combine ballistic and cruise missiles with long-range drones to overwhelm Saudi defenses, analysts say.
In Yemen, the Saudi-backed coalition is trying to prevent the Houthis from advancing further south toward the port of Aden, held by the internationally recognized government.
The Houthis have frequently targeted Aden’s airport with missiles in recent weeks, after seizing part of Yemen’s Red Sea coast in September.
Hostilities between the Iran-backed Houthis and Saudi Arabia resumed in July, shattering a 2022 U.N.-brokered ceasefire that had largely halted fighting between the two sides.
Ibrahim Dahman, Teele Rebane and Farida Elsebai contributed reporting.
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