Riyadh airport hit for second time after deadly Houthi missile attack, Saudi-led coalition says | Saudi Arabia

A projectile hit a passenger terminal at Riyadh airport on Sunday, a day after a deadly missile attack on the facility carried out by the Iran-backed Houthi rebel group in Yemen killed 12 people.

An unidentified projectile hit Terminal 4 of King Khalid International Airport, causing a fire, according to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Air defenses also intercepted a cruise missile near the airport. This is the third attack on the airport in the past week.

The escalating attacks threaten to drag more countries into the conflict in Yemen and further widen the regional fallout from the U.S.-Iran war, which has already spread to Lebanon and Iraq.

After Saturday’s attack on Riyadh’s airport, US President Donald Trump said he was considering whether to join the Saudi military campaign in Yemen, telling reporters: “We will look at it.”

Saudi Arabia blamed Saturday’s attack on the Houthis, allies of Iran, who killed 12 people and injured more than 300. – the deadliest attack on a Gulf country since the start of the war with Iran in March and an apparent escalation of the Houthi war against Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government that Riyadh sponsors.

In response to the attack, Saudi authorities extended the airport closure and said schools would go online until Thursday.

The Houthis said Saudi Arabia struck the airport in Sanaa, Yemen’s rebel-held capital, on Sunday, without providing further information on damage or casualties.

Videos circulated on social media showing travelers walking on debris-strewn ground at Riyadh airport as sirens sounded. Four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshi nationals, one Palestinian, one American citizen, one Egyptian, one Jordanian, one Syrian and one Sudanese were killed in the missile attack.

On Saturday evening, the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, General Turki al-Maliki, said the coalition would “respond strongly” to the attack, offering few other details.

The Houthis said a Saudi airstrike on Sanaa on Sunday hit a house and killed a child and injured six others.

The Houthis stepped up their threats on Sunday, warning airlines, passengers and staff to stay away from Saudi airports. The group said “the worst is yet to come” if Saudi military action in Yemen continues.

“We renew our warning to all airlines, experts, employees, workers and travelers against using Saudi airports and airspace, as they are vulnerable to attacks and have become a theater of operations for our forces,” the Houthis said in a statement on X.

Trump said he would speak with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Saturday evening, following the earlier attack on the airport.

The United States has already helped with intelligence and targeting cooperation, with about 200 American military advisers stationed in Saudi Arabia to help with the campaign. So far, the United States has not directly participated in the fighting against the Houthis.

Direct US involvement could lead the group to resume its targeting of ships transiting the Bab al-Mandab Strait, through which around 10% of the world’s maritime goods pass.

It would also draw the United States further into wars in the Middle East, as the American public grows increasingly frustrated with the continuing Iranian conflict. Trump faces the prospect of midterm elections in November with an unpopular war and soaring prices at home, threatening his party’s performance in the elections.

Saudi Arabia is already carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen. The Houthi government’s health ministry said coalition airstrikes over the past six weeks had killed 91 Yemenis and injured 168 others, 60 percent of whom were women and children.

Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen have launched a campaign to push the Houthis out of areas the group conquered over the past month. Despite their initial successes, government forces have failed to loosen the Houthis’ grip on areas closest to the Bab al-Mandab Strait, such as Perim Island.

The Egyptian woman killed in the airport attack was a flight attendant identified as Azza Ramzy, 28, who worked for Saudi airline Flynas, according to Egyptian state television.

The Syrian was a widow with four children and had lived in Saudi Arabia for five years, a relative told The Associated Press. The Syrian embassy in Riyadh identified her as Buthaina Ahmad Oweida.

Her niece, Nisreen Oweida, said her aunt was 56, from Syria’s northern Idlib province, and had left the country during the civil war. She lived in Mecca and was returning from visiting her sister in Riyadh when she was killed, the niece said.

The airport attack sparked a wave of international condemnation, including from UN Secretary-General António Guterres and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

“Attacks by Iran’s proxies are pushing the region into a spiral of violence,” von der Leyen wrote on X. “They are destabilizing crucial global transport and energy nodes. »

The increasing intensity of Houthi attacks on Riyadh and its energy infrastructure has led to increased foreign involvement in Yemen’s war. Governments face pressure on oil prices, already high due to the war between the United States and Iran since March.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey issued a joint statement saying they would move quickly to implement their mutual defense pact, including accelerating the deployment of military forces in the kingdom.

The UK said it would provide defensive military support to Riyadh, providing refueling to planes working to intercept Houthi missiles towards Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia has requested additional assistance from France, Egypt, the United Kingdom and Pakistan as its stock of interceptor missiles runs out.

The Houthis launched a military campaign to take Yemen’s Red Sea coast in early September, after months of escalating tensions with the Yemeni government and its Saudi patron. The campaign interrupted years of relative calm in the country after a UN-brokered ceasefire in 2022 froze the front lines between the Houthis and the government.

Despite the Saudi-backed counter-offensive, the group appears to have held on to its recent gains. It is unclear what further Saudi military action against the Houthis, who have resisted years of strikes from the international coalition and the United States, would look like.

Saudi Arabia led an international coalition that intervened against the Houthis in Yemen in 2015 after the group took control of Sanaa and overthrew the Yemeni government. Recent Houthi attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure, as well as Houthi military advances, have drawn Saudi Arabia back into the war in Yemen.