Saudi Arabia yesterday threatened to hit back after a wave of missiles from Yemen’s Houthis set oil facilities ablaze and wounded dozens, the Iran-backed rebels’ heaviest attack in years. The overnight attacks caused “temporary” shutdowns at oil sites and left 73 injured, Saudi authorities said, a reminder of the danger posed by the group across the southern Saudi border.
Fighting between the Tehran-supported Houthis and Saudi forces has reignited after a four-year truce collapsed in July, months into the Middle East war between the US and Iran. Photo: EPA Hundreds have died over the past few days in clashes between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces around the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the mouth of the vital Red Sea shipping route.
The Houthi attacks on energy facilities are likely to increase upward pressure on oil prices, which have spiked since Iran blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, slowing Gulf shipments to a trickle. Saudi Arabia would “take all necessary measures to defend its sovereignty,” a foreign ministry statement said, demanding a halt to the Houthi strikes and their attacks on Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea.
The Houthis fired dozens of ballistic missiles, their military spokesman said. They hit Abha International Airport, King Khalid air base and facilities belonging to state oil giant Aramco in Abha and Jizan, the rebels’ official media said. Jizan, on the Red Sea coast just north of Saudi’s Yemen border, has one of the country’s biggest oil refineries with a capacity of 400,000 barrels per day.
According to maritime tracking company Kpler, it was out of action for several weeks until at least Aug. 20 following Houthi attacks. The latest attacks came after the rebels accused Riyadh on Monday of a prison attack that killed 11 people and left 20 inmates missing, the rebels’ al-Masirah TV channel said.
Grim images from the scene showed rescuers digging in the rubble with their bare hands and carrying bodies wrapped in blankets. The Houthis triggered a return to hostilities in Yemen’s civil war in July, when they let an Iranian plane land in defiance of Saudi control of Yemeni airspace.
They have also been attacking Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, a vital export route since Iran blockaded the Strait of Hormuz as part of its war with the US. The Saudi-led coalition, which has been fighting the Houthis on the government’s behalf since 2015, also said it would respond to the latest attacks.
The coalition’s Joint Forces Command will “take all necessary measures and actions to respond to the sources of the threat and neutralize its danger,” a statement said. Taiwan, which accounts for more than half of the global outsourced semiconductor assembly and testing market, is well-positioned to develop copackaged optics (CPO) and manufacture precision silicon photonics chips, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Silicon photonics are emerging as a mainstream optical communications technology and is seen as key to overcoming bottlenecks in AI computing power. The technology is a key project under the government’s New 10 Major AI Infrastructure Projects, with industry, government, academia and research institutions working to overcome critical technological hurdles and build a self-reliant silicon photonics supply chain, the ministry said.
Nvidia Corp in March invested US$4 The air force plans to build 26 more hardened aircraft shelters as the number of F-16Vs stationed along Taiwan’s east coast is expected to reach 120 when the final shipment of 66 jets procured from the US arrives. The incoming jets would be stationed at Chihhang Air Base in Taitung County, augmenting the F-16V Block 20s operated by the 5th Tactical Fighter Wing in Hualien County, officials said yesterday.
The air force plans to allocate more than NT$6.88 billion (US$218.1 million) from next year to 2031 to build the shelters in Hualien and Taitung as part of the implementation of a “one Palau’s president yesterday called for a “unified” Pacific response to a missile test by China in July, while Taiwan and its Pacific allies a day earlier at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) reaffirmed their commitment to peace, stability and prosperity.
China gave only a handful of nations short notice before test-firing an intercontinental ballistic missile in July, sparking condemnation from several Pacific leaders. The 18-member PIF being held in Palau was expected to release a communique after press time last night, with a formal response to the test possibly included.
Palau, which invited Taiwan to attend sideline events as an aid partner, urged China’s continued efforts to inject geopolitical rivalry into the region and disrupt Pacific nations’ discussions of regional issues warrant greater international attention, a foreign affairs official said yesterday.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) last week led a delegation to diplomatic ally Palau to attend events related to the 55th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) summit. However, the absence of some member-state leaders has been interpreted by some people as a sign of fracturing in Pacific unity.