Yemen’s Houthi militants fired missiles at several Saudi cities on Tuesday 13 October 2026, striking Saudi Aramco’s headquarters in Dhahran and sending debris onto homes in Riyadh. It is part of a wave of attacks on the kingdom that has already killed at least 18 people.
According to World Oil, Aramco’s headquarters in Dhahran in eastern Saudi Arabia was struck on Tuesday night, and a fire broke out in part of the complex. The fire was extinguished, but the extent of the damage was unclear, and it could not immediately be established whether the fire was caused by a direct hit or by debris from intercepted projectiles. Other reports said the top three floors of an office tower were damaged, and that there were no injuries, according to the Saudi ministry. Aramco and the energy ministry did not immediately comment.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said Houthi missiles targeted several Saudi cities, including the capital Riyadh and Dhahran. It said ballistic missiles aimed at Dhahran and Haradh were intercepted, and that shrapnel from an interception fell in part of a residential area in Dhahran. In Riyadh, Gulf Business reported that two cruise missiles launched at the capital were intercepted and destroyed, and that falling debris damaged 15 homes and injured four people. Three drones were also destroyed north of the capital.
The raids on Tuesday followed a wave of attacks on Saudi Arabia in recent days that has targeted airports around the country and left at least 18 people dead and hundreds injured, according to World Oil. Earlier attacks have also hit energy sites: a refinery in Jazan, which has been shut since an earlier attack, a Red Sea export port, and a cross-country pipeline that was temporarily shut last month.
The strikes matter because Aramco is central to Saudi Arabia’s economy and to global oil supply. In our October ranking of the world’s most valuable companies, Aramco was the second-largest non-US company by market value, at about $1.66 trillion on a 13 October snapshot. Neither World Oil nor Gulf Business gave a figure for any effect on oil output or prices, and Delima News has not seen any official figure.
The Houthis have not been quoted in the reports reviewed here on their stated aims for this round of attacks, and Riyadh has not announced how it will respond beyond the coalition’s statement. The fighting in Yemen has also driven more than 200,000 people from their homes this autumn, according to the World Health Organization, a toll that Delima News covers separately in its report on the cholera outbreak there.
The Houthi campaign against the kingdom has built up over the summer. Wikipedia’s 2026 timeline for Saudi Arabia records that on 13 July the Houthis fired missiles at Abha International Airport after an attack on Sanaa airport that they blamed on Riyadh, and that on 20 July they declared a blockade of Saudi ports and ships in the Bab-el-Mandeb strait. They claimed strikes on Aramco facilities in Jizan and Yanbu in late July, and a Houthi missile attack in Najran Province injured 11 civilians on 6 August. Earlier in the year, in March, Iran launched a missile and drone attack on Aramco’s Ras Tanura refinery during a separate regional conflict, causing large fires and forcing its closure.
For now, the key facts are clear: a headquarters fire at Saudi Arabia’s state oil giant, a damaged residential area in the capital, interceptions that stopped the worst of the missiles, and four people injured in Riyadh, with no injuries reported at Aramco’s complex. The next developments to watch are any Saudi retaliation, airport closures, and whether the Dhahran damage affects Aramco’s operations.
Image: The Itra Center of Saudi Aramco in Dhahran (file photo, not from the events described). Photo: Shijan Kaakkara / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
