SANA’A, YEMEN — A source inside of Yemen’s Air Force told MintPress that an unmanned long-range drone, dubbed the Samad 2, targeted an Aramco oil refinery in Saudi Arabia’s capital city of Riyadh, located over 1000 km (621 miles) away from Yemen’s capital, Sana’a.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told MintPress that the drone successfully bombed the Aramco refinery and then returned to its base in Yemen.

Saudi Aramco confirmed that there was a fire in one of their storage containers, saying in a statement:

Saudi Aramco and Civil Defense firefighters managed to control a limited fire that took place this evening in one of the reservoirs at the Riyadh refinery … the cause of the accident is under investigation.”

In an update on its official Twitter account, Aramco later claimed the fire stemmed from “an operational incident.”

A Yemeni military source told MintPress that the attack was in retaliation for the Saudi-led coalition’s ongoing siege of the Yemeni people, as well as for its attacks on the strategic port city of Hodeida, which is the lifeline for the majority of Yemen’s population.

Speaking to local media, Yemen’s Army Spokesman General Sharaf Ghaleb Luqman promised more surprises in coming days, adding, “what the Air Force has achieved is a new deterrent phase.”

Yemen’s Air Force revealed to MintPress that the long-range Sammad 2 drone was named after Yemen’s late President Saleh Ali al-Sammad, who was assassinated in a Saudi-led coalition airstrike in Hodeida.

While Yemen’s Air Force has used drones to carry out attacks on Saudi and UAE fighters in the past — including a recent strike on coalition bases in Al-labinat in Al-Jawf east of Sana`a — the drone strike in Riyadh is the first of its kind as it struck deep in Saudi territory and marks a new milestone for the Yemeni Air Force’s technical operations.

Top Photo | A file photo of a Saudi Aramco Refinery. Reuters

Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media.

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