A fresh Houthi strike hit Riyadh’s international airport on Sunday, killing one person and wounding 11 others, a day after another deadly attack claimed by the Yemeni group forced authorities to suspend operations there.
Saturday’s attack, the deadliest on Saudi soil in more than
a decade, was a sharp escalation in the Yemen war, where Riyadh has long
militarily supported the internationally recognised government against the
Houthis.
The Iran-backed group on Sunday claimed multiple attacks
over the last 24 hours, including on the airport, and threatened to keep
targeting the kingdom’s transit hubs, calling them “a theatre of operations for
our forces”.
Hours later, the Saudi-led coalition fighting the group
reported that a projectile struck King Khalid International Airport, sparking a
fire.
Air defences also intercepted a missile nearby, it added.
The fresh attack on the airport killed one person — a
Pakistani resident — and wounded 11 others, Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation
authority said on X.
Authorities have extended the closure of the airport by 24
hours until 2100 GMT on Monday, the tracking site Flightradar24 said on the
same platform.
AFP journalists and locals reported hearing multiple blasts
in the Saudi capital on Sunday.
“The birds went into a frenzy after the sound. The whole
house shook,” said one resident of the Al-Aarid neighbourhood in the north of
the city.
The civil aviation authority also reported another attack on
Dammam airport in the east — which the Houthis also said they had targeted — a
day after the Saudi coalition reported a projectile landing nearby.
Shortly afterwards, the coalition reported shooting down a
drone, also in the east.
It said early on Monday that it had also “intercepted and
destroyed” a Houthi ballistic missile heading for the southern Saudi city of
Khamis Mushait, home to a major military base.
– ‘Full-fledged war crime’ –
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a call with
his Saudi counterpart that “insisting on a military approach and disregarding a
political solution would further complicate the current situation”, Iran’s
state media reported.
He said Tehran was ready to help “initiate dialogue between
Saudi Arabia and Yemen and facilitate the achievement of a political solution”,
according to official state news agency IRNA.
The Houthis have stepped up their attacks on the Riyadh
airport — where three people were also killed on Thursday — as well as on Saudi
oil facilities and tankers in the Red Sea.
Although Saudi Arabia has poured billions into its military,
Houthi attacks continue to slip through.
“Saudi air defences have been able to intercept some Houthi
missile and drone attacks, but Saudi Arabia is so large that it’s simply
impossible for them to consistently defend themselves,” said Thomas Juneau,
security analyst at Ottawa University.
The anti-Houthi coalition called Saturday’s attack a
“full-fledged war crime” and vowed to “respond decisively”.
Houthi media reported two Saudi strikes in Yemen’s
Houthi-controlled Sanaa governorate on Sunday.
A spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry said on X
that one of the strikes killed a civilian and wounded five others.
Saturday’s attack drew condemnation from the United Nations
and leaders around the world, including US President Donald Trump, who said he
was considering joining Saudi strikes against the Houthis.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose country
does not have diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, also denounced the
“horrific terrorist attack”.
Four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshis, one American, one
Egyptian, one Jordanian, one Syrian, one Palestinian and one Sudanese were
killed, the civil aviation authority said, with 309 people wounded.
The Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia also said one of its
citizens died on Sunday after being wounded the day before.
– Operations suspended –
Witnesses to Saturday’s strike described chaos in the
aftermath.
“Some had lost a hand or an arm. People were running while
carrying injured people, covered in blood,” a 32-year-old Riyadh resident told
AFP.
The US, Canadian, German and Spanish embassies in Saudi
Arabia have warned their citizens to avoid Riyadh airport.
Australia condemned the Houthi attacks as “unacceptable” on
Monday, having earlier urged its citizens in Saudi Arabia to stay indoors and
“shelter in place”.
Saudi Arabia leads an international coalition that has
supported Yemen’s government militarily since 2015, including by seeking to
exert control over Yemeni airspace and the airport in the Houthi-held capital
Sanaa.
Ottawa University’s Juneau said the Houthis now “want to do
to Saudi Arabia what Saudi Arabia does to them”.
On the ground in Yemen, Saudi-supported government forces
were advancing in their counter-offensive against the Houthis around the Bab
al-Mandab strait, a key shipping route, military sources said Saturday.
The Houthis claimed to have repelled them.
Claims by both sides have been impossible to independently
verify, with the situation moving fast on the ground and access for journalists
difficult.
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