A drone strike on Saudi Arabia’s critical East-West oil pipeline has forced the kingdom to halt the key artery, a sudden escalation in a widening Middle East war that is already rattling global energy markets.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter, said it temporarily closed the pipeline as a precaution after an aerial attack that both Riyadh and Baghdad said originated in Iraq, where Iranian-backed militias operate.
Iraq dismissed a military commander in response to the attack.
The 1,200km pipeline spanning the Arabian Peninsula has, for the past six months, been the main outlet for Middle East oil supplies as war has largely shut the Strait of Hormuz.
In recent months it has transported 4-5 million barrels per day — roughly 4% to 5% of global supply — helping Saudi Arabia avoid the worst of the disruption that has hit other Gulf oil and gas exporters.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the strikes.
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Satellite images showed black smoke billowing from a section of the pipeline south of Medina. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry said the attack caused injuries and damage that was still being assessed, but it did not specify any impact on exports.
US President Donald Trump said Iran was probably to blame.
Saudi leader asks for military help
The shutdown lands as oil prices have climbed sharply over the past week and US diesel prices surged past a record $6 a gallon. The jump has come as the United States and Iran both fired on tankers and as Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen pushed along the Red Sea, raising the prospect of disruption spreading to yet another major shipping corridor.
That puts Washington in a bind over whether it should help Saudi Arabia fight the Houthis — a move that could widen the war further.
Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, phoned Mr Trump on Thursday and asked for US military help in fighting the Houthis, three sources told Reuters.
Those sources said the crown prince was told the United States would not intervene directly for now, but would provide intelligence support.
Mr Trump confirmed he had spoken with the crown prince, and said the Houthis had also contacted his administration to ask Washington not to become directly involved in the conflict.
Four Yemeni government sources told Reuters that the Houthis seized the strategic island of Perim yesterday, located in the middle of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — the so-called “Gate of Tears” at the mouth of the Red Sea.
Yemen government forces say hit Houthis in Red Sea city
Yemen’s Saudi-backed government forces said they struck Iran-allied Houthi fighters in the Red Sea city of Mocha, as the number of civilians forced to flee the renewed fighting continued to climb.
The government news agency Saba reported that Yemeni “forces destroyed vehicles and weapons and killed members of the Houthi terrorist militia” near the port of Mocha, quoting a spokesman who said they also hit Houthi targets just outside the city.
The Houthis, for their part, said this evening that “Saudi enemy aircraft conducted 129 airstrikes” over the past 48 hours on areas under their control.
Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis captured the capital Sanaa. After a ceasefire in 2022, the conflict had largely lain dormant before surging back in July, pulling Yemen deeper into the broader Middle East war.
Saudi Arabia entered Yemen’s war in 2015 on the side of the internationally recognised government and continues to back the Aden-based administration.
This evening, Saudi authorities issued two brief alerts warning of the risk of attacks in two southern regions near Yemen.
Iranian official plays down Oman meeting
No talks between the United States and Iran have taken place to end the conflict since a June agreement that collapsed within weeks.
In a post on X, Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said: “As long as the American side does not accept all of Iran’s conditions, dialogue and negotiation are of no use.”
Iran’s foreign ministry announced yesterday that Iran would attend a meeting with Gulf Arab states in Oman on Monday, where the future of the Strait of Hormuz would be discussed.
But a senior Iranian official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, played down hopes of a breakthrough. The official said the meeting — called at Oman’s initiative — was intended to cover issues including the strait, but was not expected to produce a signed agreement.
Oman has not officially announced the meeting, and other Gulf countries have remained silent.
Bahrain said it would not attend meetings with Iran.
Iran wants its control of the Strait of Hormuz to be recognised, enabling it to collect fees from ships that use it — a position Washington rejects. Oman, which controls the opposite bank of the strait, says it is negotiating with the agreement of other regional states.
The apparent launch of the strike on the Saudi pipeline from Iraq adds pressure on the Baghdad government, which is unusual in the region for maintaining close political and military ties with both the United States and Iran.
Yemen’s Houthi supporters take part in a rally to celebrate the group’s takeover of Mocha and the Bab El-Mandeb Strait
Iraq dismissed the military commander and police chief in Maysan province near the Iranian frontier — long seen as an area where Iran-backed Shia militias operate and maintain influence — and shut the main border crossing there.
Saudi Arabia, which has previously struck pro-Iranian militias in Iraq, has so far chosen not to retaliate, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said, citing a request from the Iraqi prime minister.
Saudi crude supply has dropped to its lowest level in more than three decades, the International Energy Agency said yesterday, partly because of attacks on ships transiting Bab el-Mandeb by Houthi-linked groups.
In Yemen, Saudi-backed forces aligned with the southern-based government signalled they would try to retake areas captured this week during the Houthis’ lightning offensive. The Houthis are mountain fighters who seized the capital 12 years ago and endured years of deadly Saudi airstrikes during Yemen’s civil war.
Reuters reported that the dramatic Houthi advance down Yemen’s Red Sea coast came with direct guidance from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Iran told the Houthis last week to escalate attacks on Saudi Arabia and promised more funding, weapons and officers to help, two Iranian sources said.
Iran describes the Houthis as an ally but publicly denies giving them military direction.
The Houthi military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said maritime navigation remained safe for all shipping except Saudi vessels, which he said were subject to a previously announced ban.
Trump claims Iran would have launched nuclear attack on Europe
Speaking in Dublin earlier, Mr Trump repeated his belief that the war with Iran would end after US midterm elections in November, and predicted oil prices would then fall.
“I think very soon. I think it’ll be probably right after the mid-terms. They’re trying to hold out as long as they can to complicate the election. But I think people are wise to it,” Mr Trump told reporters.
“When that happens, oil prices will come tumbling down.”
Trump says US has done ‘a great job’ in Gaza
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He said that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon”, adding: “They were two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon.
“If they had it, they would have blown up Israel, they would have blown up the Middle East, and they would have hit some … in my opinion, (of) Europe’s cities and beyond cities, and they would probably hit us soon before we put out the fire. But they cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
Mr Trump added that there was “very little happening” in Gaza, saying the US “facilitated a peace of a kind”.
When asked how he would respond to people who say the US is “facilitating genocide in Gaza”, Mr Trump said: “When you say Gaza, we put out the fire. We got all the hostages back.
“There’s very little happening right now in Gaza. That’s not the place that people are talking about actually now.
“It was all about Gaza, and we got involved and we facilitated a peace of a kind, but we got all the hostages back.”
