Aramco in Dhahran: Saudi Energy Ministry confirms office building was targeted

Saudi Arabia's Energy Ministry confirmed that in the Houthi attack of Tuesday night, 13 October 2026, an office building of the Aramco company in the city of Dhahran, in the country's Eastern Province, was targeted. According to the ministry, no one was injured in the attack. The confirmation came after DIAR's earlier report about the sound of an explosion being heard near Aramco's headquarters.

An Aramco source and two other people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that one of the office towers of Aramco's central complex in Dhahran, which also houses an important operations centre of the company, was damaged, that its top three floors were hit, and that the building caught fire. Bloomberg later reported that the fire had been put out, but the extent of the damage is still unclear. It is still not known whether the building was hit directly by a missile or struck by fragments of an intercepted missile. Aramco has so far made no official comment on the incident.

Missiles intercepted over Dhahran and Riyadh

The Saudi-led coalition had earlier announced that it intercepted three Houthi missiles and two drones over Riyadh and Dhahran, and that fragments of one missile landed in a residential area of Dhahran. The coalition also said that, in an operation to disable the Houthis' military capability, it bombed a fuel depot near Sanaa and several other targets.

Yahya Saree, the Houthis' military spokesman, had threatened before the attack that Aramco's headquarters in Dhahran and a refinery in Riyadh could be targeted, and had warned oil-industry workers to stay away from these facilities. The threat came after the attack on the Al-Sabahah oil station in Sanaa.

The Houthis, the Islamic Republic's arm in a regional war

The Houthis are among the Islamic Republic's main allies in the region, and the new Yemen–Saudi confrontation is part of the fallout of the war that has been under way between the United States and the Islamic Republic since 28 February 2026. In recent days Riyadh's King Khalid Airport has been targeted several times by the Houthis, and the death toll from the attacks on Riyadh airport has reached 14. Meanwhile, Abbas Araghchi, the Islamic Republic's foreign minister, has offered to mediate between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, an offer from a government that is itself known as the group's backer and arms supplier.

Aramco's headquarters in Dhahran is the heart of Saudi Arabia's oil industry, and an attack on it, after the Strait of Hormuz was left closed and tankers were repeatedly attacked, has heightened fears of the war spreading to energy facilities in the Persian Gulf.

Saudi Arabia's Energy Ministry confirmed that Aramco's office building in Dhahran was targeted by the Houthis, allies of the Islamic Republic.