Jeddah hit by fresh explosions as Saudi strike campaign widens

The blasts follow a claimed Houthi strike on an Aramco site in Jeddah a day earlier and a week of attacks reaching as far as Riyadh

Multiple explosions were reported in Jeddah on Thursday. No Saudi official has yet confirmed damage or casualties.

The city was last targeted on Wednesday, when Houthi forces said they struck an Aramco oil distribution site in Jeddah. That claim followed a separate attack on Aramco's Dhahran headquarters on Tuesday night, which Saudi officials said caused a limited fire. Sirens and explosions were also heard again on Thursday in Najran and Jazan, two cities near the border that have been hit repeatedly in recent weeks.

The pattern has moved well beyond that border corridor. The Houthi campaign has reached Riyadh itself, with confirmed damage at the capital's airport, deaths at King Khalid International and a fire at an Aramco building there. Houthi forces also claimed strikes on Riyadh Airport and the Khamis Mushait air base on Monday, which Saudi Arabia has not confirmed, and Riyadh Airport extended a flight suspension earlier this month after confirmed damage from strikes that also hit Dammam Airport.

Jeddah itself has seen alerts clear before without confirmed damage, including one on September 15 and another on September 24 that ended in the usual all-clear. Set against that history, Thursday's explosions read as another entry in a lengthening tally of Saudi strike headlines rather than a fresh escalation on their own, unless Saudi authorities confirm damage this time instead of issuing another all-clear. US equities with exposure to energy costs have stayed more sensitive to that cumulative pattern of incidents than to any single one of them in isolation.