Saudi Arabia addressed the UN Security Council in writing, insisting that Yemen's Houthi group was to blame for a missile attack on its petroleum products distribution plant in Jeddah on Monday, urging the international body to "stop the threat" to global energy security, Yemen's political process, and regional security.
"It has been identified that the Houthis militia backed by Iran is responsible for the terrorist attack", Saudi UN Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi said in a letter obtained by Reuters.
He went on to warn that Saudi Arabia would "spare no efforts" to protect its territorial integrity and citizens.
"We urge the Security Council to shoulder its responsibility and to stop the threat of this militia to the global energy security, the U.N. political process in Yemen and to regional security," Al-Mouallimi wrote in the letter.
Oil giant Saudi Aramco said on Tuesday that the Monday attack didn’t impact its domestic fuel supplies, adding that operations at the plant resumed three hours after the incident.
The Saudi-led Arab coalition that has been fighting rebels in Yemen argued shortly thereafter that the Houthis’ missile strike in Jeddah was in actual fact an attack on global energy security rather than the country's domestic assets.
Col. Turki al-Maliki, the coalition's spokesman, said rebels "did not target the Kingdom's National Assets, but the core of the global economy and its supply routes, as well as the security of global energy," according to a statement cited by the Saudi state news agency SPA.
The attack comes amid frequent reports by Saudi state media about drone attacks carried out by the Houthis against the kingdom.
Yemen has in recent years been engulfed in a military conflict between the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi and the armed Houthi opposition. In 2015, the Saudi-led Arab coalition got involved in the conflict on behalf of Hadi's troops to carry out military operations against the Houthis.