Houthis hit oil facility near Riyadh

In neighbouring Saudi Arabia, flames and smoke were seen rising on Saturday afternoon from an Aramco facility south of Riyadh, an AFP journalist said.

While the Saudi authorities are yet to comment, late on Saturday, the Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group had targeted an oil facility in Riyadh with ballistic missiles and drones, adding that they sparked fires at the targeted sites.

The AFP journalist reported seeing firefighters attempting to extinguish a blaze at Aramco's Riyadh refinery, located south of the capital, while ambulances and police vehicles were stationed near the facility. The Houthis' Al-Masirah channel earlier on Saturday also reported missile strikes on the telecommunications network in Yemen's northwestern governorate of Saada, one of the group's strongholds.

It comes after the Houthis said that Saudi Arabia bombed the Yemeni capital itself on Thursday night for the first time since renewed fighting broke out between the two sides in July.

Meanwhile, Yemeni government forces have taken control of the Samaa fort after heavy clashes with the Houthi rebels southeast of the city of Taiz, Al Jazeera reports citing the government-run Saba news agency.

A military source tells Saba that government forces, backed by local popular resistance fighters from the Samaa district, took the fort after "violent battles" with Houthi fighters, with dozens of Houthi fighters killed or wounded and others fleeing. Fighting in recent days has centred on Taiz, where dozens of combatants were reported killed on Friday by sources on both sides.

The Houthis reported 55 of their fighters had been killed while government 26 troops had died. The battle for Taiz is taking place on several fronts, including highlands overlooking coastal areas recently seized by the Houthis.

While the Houthis have conquered swathes of territory, they have yet to take control of Taiz city, which is Yemen's third-largest after Sanaa and Aden. The Houthis also on Friday said Saudi Arabia had launched 94 strikes against areas under their control in the past 24 hours.

Saudi authorities meanwhile reported a Houthi projectile had damaged a school in the city of Najran near the Yemen border. Riyadh has reportedly requested help from the United States, a call so far rebuffed by US President Donald Trump.

On Saturday US media outlet Axios reported that top cabinet members in the Trump administration met the day before to discuss Yemen as well as the Iran conflict, citing three US officials. The meeting was not officially announced.