Aramco Building in Riyadh Financial District Damaged in Attempted Attack, No Injuries Reported

Updated 10:26 UTC

An Aramco administrative building in Riyadh's King Abdullah Financial District was damaged on Sunday in an attempted attack, Saudi Arabia's Energy Ministry said. Falling shrapnel caused minor damage to the building, with no injuries or fatalities reported, the ministry said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.

Witnesses told AFP the Aramco tower in the district had been targeted, and other witnesses said they saw damage to the building. CNN said video circulating on social media and verified by the network showed damage to upper floors. The Wall Street Journal reported the tower also contains residential units and was empty at the time. The Hindu BusinessLine reported the financial district has been shut for remote work for almost a month.

The damage is the newest confirmed fact from Sunday's attack on the capital, which began with a Civil Defense early warning alert and loud booms heard across Riyadh, as reported below.

The Saudi led coalition said it intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles fired by Yemen's Iran aligned Houthi group toward Riyadh on Sunday, Reuters reported. The coalition announced the interception in a post on X, ANI reported. Later, the coalition said it had intercepted and destroyed two cruise missiles in Riyadh and the southern region, Reuters reported. The coalition announcements carried no report of casualties or damage.

Multiple loud booms were heard in Riyadh on Sunday shortly after Saudi Civil Defense issued an early warning alert of a potential threat, a Reuters witness said. Civil Defense later said the danger had passed. An early warning was also issued for the Najran region in the south of the kingdom, according to a roundup of Sunday developments published by Nabamart. Officials did not say what caused the booms in the capital, and the Reuters account carried no report of casualties or damage in Riyadh.

An interception in the east

Hours earlier, Civil Defense lifted alerts in several areas of the oil rich Eastern Province, including Dhahran, home to the headquarters of Saudi Aramco, shortly after warning of potential danger, Reuters reported. The all clear also applied to Dammam, Abqaiq and Al-Ahsa governorate. Shortly after the all clear, the Saudi led coalition fighting in Yemen said it had intercepted a ballistic missile launched by the Yemeni Iran allied Houthi group toward the Eastern region. Coalition spokesman Major General Turki Al-Maliki said on X that air defence intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis toward the eastern region, according to the Nabamart roundup.

The Eastern Province contains the majority of the kingdom's oil and gas reserves, and the Aramco headquarters in Dhahran suffered extensive damage in an attack in October, Reuters noted. The Times of Israel, reporting the coalition announcement, said no damage or injuries had been reported in the material available on the Eastern Province alerts and the interception.

A Houthi claim, and the strikes near Sanaa

On Saturday, the Houthis said they had launched six missile and drone operations against Saudi targets. In the statement reported on Saturday, the group named Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, oil storage tanks and a distillation tower in the capital, Aramco facilities in Khurais and Pumping Station No. 8 in the Dawadmi area, along with Saudi military sites.

The claim came on the same day the Houthi run health ministry said airstrikes it blamed on Saudi Arabia killed at least 27 people and wounded 36 in homes near Sanaa, the Yemeni capital. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group had carried out attacks against Saudi Arabia in response. Reuters and the Associated Press said they could not independently verify the Houthi account of the strikes near Sanaa, and Saudi Arabia's Center for International Communication told Reuters it would look into the reports.

The Houthis have been firing ballistic missiles and drones at Saudi airports, ports and oil installations for months, and hostilities between the kingdom and the Iran aligned group have persisted since the Yemen war resumed in July. Sunday's alerts were the latest in a run of early warnings across the kingdom in recent weeks.