Houthis hit Saudi oil sites as US weighs strikes on Iran

Summary

A US-Iran standoff over the timing of possible strikes has reached a stage in which Gulf oil infrastructure itself is within reach, as Yemen's Houthis claimed attacks on Saudi oil facilities and airports.⁠12

The targets the group listed included Saudi Aramco's Yanbu facility, the Rabigh refinery and airports in Riyadh and Dammam, and Saudi civil defence warned that missile debris had fallen in Makkah and Madinah.⁠3

In a memo to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton warned that Iran had substantially increased efforts to target US personnel, and Washington reduced staffing at four Middle East embassies.⁠4

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak has killed more than 4,600 people, and a new vaccine trial named Tumaini, meaning hope in Swahili, has begun, although no vaccine has yet been approved for this strain.⁠5

In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky told ABC News that Kyiv is ready to halt fighting along the current front line, while insisting it would not cede 25 percent of its territory, which would require withdrawing from Donbas.⁠6

Whether the United States carries out the strike on Iran that a US envoy said could come as early as this weekend will determine how far tensions over Saudi Arabia and the Strait of Hormuz spread next.⁠2