Saudi Arabia's crown prince has told US President
Donald Trump the kingdom was "willing and able" to respond to the latest attacks claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels on its oil facilities, state media reported.
"The kingdom is willing and able to confront and deal with this terrorist aggression," Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (
MBS) told Trump during a phone call on Saturday, according to the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
MBS was referring to drone attacks earlier in the day on two state-owned
Saudi Aramco oil facilities, which triggered enormous fires and disrupted global energy supplies.
According to a statement by the Saudi embassy in Washington, DC, Trump told MBS that the US was ready to cooperate with the kingdom to protect its security in the wake of the drone attacks.
In the phone call, Trump also told the crown prince the attacks hurt the US and global economies, the SPA said in an Arabic-language statement
The
Houthis, who have been fighting a Saudi-UAE-led coalition in an ongoing civil war in
Yemen since 2015, took responsibility for the early morning attacks, which involved 10 drones and caused fires at the facilities at Abqaiq, the world's largest oil processing complex, and Khurais, a major oilfield.