Sanaa-based agency reports deadly Saudi strike on plastics plant near Taiz

A Saudi airstrike hit a plastics plant at Mufrak Sharab in Yemen's Taiz governorate overnight into 3 November, according to a video post on X by the account @TheObserverLens ¹. A separate post by @ME_Observer_ relayed a report from the Saba news agency in Sanaa that three people were killed and eight wounded in a Saudi attack on a plastics factory in western Taiz ².

The @TheObserverLens post, which carried video, gave no information on casualties ¹. The casualty figures come only from Saba's Sanaa branch, as relayed by @ME_Observer_ ². Neither account has been independently verified, the footage has not been geolocated, and there was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia or the coalition it leads.

It is also not confirmed that the two posts describe the same site, though both refer to a plastics facility in Taiz struck by Saudi forces ¹². A one-line report published by a financial news service several hours earlier cited unnamed Yemeni sources as saying a Saudi strike on a shoe factory in Taiz killed three people and injured eight. The matching figures suggest it may refer to the same incident, but that report named neither the location nor its sources, and the link could not be confirmed.

Mufrak Sharab, named in the video post ¹, refers to the Shar'ab junction in the Al-Ta'iziyah district. The area lies north or northwest of Taiz city on the Houthi-controlled side of the front line, so the description of the site as being in western Taiz ² may be imprecise.

The reported strike ¹² follows other claimed attacks on industrial sites in the same area. On 29 October, the Houthi-run Health Ministry in Sanaa said a Saudi airstrike hit the Al-Shaibani paint factory near the Shar'ab junction and injured one person, with local sources describing large fires. It is not known whether the new video shows that earlier site or a different facility.

Houthi-run bodies and Houthi-aligned outlets have reported a series of Saudi strikes on businesses across Taiz governorate in late October, including an ice factory in Mocha where several workers were said to be injured and a car repair workshop in Al-Ta'iziyah where Houthi authorities said two people died. Those figures have not been independently checked. Cross-border fighting has resumed after largely stopping under a UN-brokered truce in 2022, and other recent reports, none confirmed, describe Houthi missile strikes on sites in Saudi Arabia and Houthi advances in Lahj governorate.

Key details of the latest incident remain unclear, including the exact location and name of the facility, whether the casualty figures relayed from Saba ² refer to the site shown in the video ¹, and whether Saudi forces carried out the strike.