Yemeni army warns of more retaliation as Saudis seize fuel tanker 

A spokesman for the Yemeni National Oil Company says the Saudi-led coalition has seized another fuel tanker heading for the impoverished nation which is under a crippling blockade of the kingdom.

"The US-led coalition of aggression, in order to tighten the siege on the Yemeni people, confiscated  the second tanker named Sea Adore carrying gasoline on Monday despite inspection and permit by the United Nations," Yemen's al-Masirah television quoted Essam al-Mutawakil as saying.    

"The seizure of this ship has clearly ignored the suffering that the Yemeni people have undergone due to the unprecedented shortage of fuel," he added.

According to Mutawakil, the seizure raises the number of tankers by the Saudi coalition to three, including two ships carrying gasoline.  

Earlier, spokesman for the Yemeni Ministry of Health Anis al-Asbahi said that Yemen's health sector needed more than 6 million liters of diesel to keep hospitals and medical oxygen production plants operational.

The seizure of fuel ships, he said, has shut down many dialysis and surgical wards and neonatal intensive care units.

The Saudi coalition's confiscation of the new fuel tanker comes after Yemeni forces unleashed a barrage of retaliatory drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, targeting a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant and oil facility and other energy installations.

Later on Sunday, Saudi Arabia said an aerial attack struck an oil facility in the port city of Jeddah, sparking a fire.  

Spokesman for Yemeni armed forces Gen. Yahya Saree indicated that the multiple attacks were in retaliation for "the criminal enemy's siege on the country's economic facilities and projects".

On Monday, senior Ansarullah official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said the retaliatory attacks have just started with the aim of breaking the Saudi-led siege on Yemen.

"We are determined to carry out operations against the Saudi coalition's oil facilities, and we have large stockpiles of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and UAVs," he said.

"The armed forces of Yemen once again warn the Saudi enemy that it has launched heavy strikes on the basis of the special purpose target bank to break the siege.

"The Yemeni armed forces have no doubts about expanding their scope of targets in the next phase," he added.

Senior US officials said Monday the Biden administration has transferred a significant number of Patriot antimissile interceptors to Saudi Arabia within the past month, fulfilling Riyadh’s urgent request for a resupply.

The transfer comes as the Biden administration has increasingly sought to convince Riyadh to pump more crude oil to help alleviate soaring prices spurred by Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.

Saudi Arabia warned on Monday that Yemeni attacks on the kingdom’s oil facilities pose a “direct threat” to global supplies.

Saudi Arabia “will not incur any responsibility” for shortages in oil supplies in light of the Yemeni attacks, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The statement came a day after a Yemeni drone assault on the Yasref refinery in Yanbu Industrial City on the Red Sea “led to a temporary reduction in the refinery’s production”, the Saudi energy ministry said.

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