At least 12 dead in Riyadh airport attack: Saudi officials

At least 12 people were killed and 309 others wounded Saturday in a strike on Riyadh’s international airport, Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation officials said — an attack that a diplomatic source blamed on Yemen’s Houthis.

Four Saudi citizens were among the dead, as well as two Bangladeshis, one US citizen, one Egyptian, one Jordanian, one Syrian, one Palestinian and one Sudanese, the statement added. Some of the wounded were in serious condition.

The Iran-backed Houthis have unleashed a wave of strikes against the kingdom on an unprecedented scale, targeting Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers since a truce in their long-running war with Yemen’s Riyadh-backed government unravelled in July.

Admissions by Saudi authorities of strikes hitting civilian targets are relatively rare, and aviation officials did not mention the Houthis by name.

The diplomatic source attributed the attack to a Houthi missile.

Operations were suspended at the sprawling King Khalid International Airport following the attack, the Saudi civil aviation authority said earlier.

Damages were still being assessed.

The attack prompted health officials to activate a rare mass call-up of doctors to deal with the “serious emergency situation”, a medical source said.

Foreign embassies warned their citizens to avoid the airport.

– ‘Serious emergency situation’ –

One passenger told AFP they witnessed a strike in the airport’s domestic terminal.

“I was on gate 403,” the witness said. “I saw 401 hit, I saw injured in front of my eyes. Everyone was running.”

Hours after the Riyadh attack, a spokesman for the Saudi-led international coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthis said in a post on X that a “projectile” had landed near King Fahd International Airport in Dammam.

And then early Sunday, the coalition said it had intercepted a missile southeast of the capital.

The Houthis claimed a series of strikes targeting the airport on Thursday that killed three people and damaged a plane, though they did not immediately take responsibility for any new attacks on Saturday.

Two doctors told AFP that several pilgrims headed to Mecca had been among the wounded.

– US ‘may’ join Saudi strikes –

The civil war in Yemen flared back to life in July after a four-year, UN-brokered truce collapsed, months into a wider Middle East war that has rocked the region and roiled energy supplies and markets.

Saudi Arabia leads an international coalition that has supported Yemen’s government militarily since 2015 and is now being drawn deeper into its impoverished neighbour’s conflict.

Asked on Saturday whether he had changed his mind about joining Saudi strikes on the group, US President Donald Trump said: “We may.”

“We’re going to look at it,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We just found out about the recent attack, so we’ll make a decision.”

US media outlets have reported that previous Saudi requests for US military assistance in dealing with the Houthis have been rebuffed.

The US, Canadian, German and Spanish embassies in Saudi Arabia called on their citizens to avoid the airport.

A senior Western diplomat told AFP that several embassies had said they were banning their staff from using the airport “over the next week”.

Near the airport, passengers carrying luggage could be seen standing on the pavement at a metro station.

The latest attack comes on the eve of Saudi Arabia’s high-profile convention and entertainment season, which begins this month.

Riyadh usually hosts a packed calendar of events, including its flagship investment conference drawing foreign leaders and business titans.

– ‘Moving up the escalation ladder’ –

In Yemen, Saudi-supported government forces were advancing against the Houthis in areas the group captured last month around the Bab al-Mandab strait, military sources told AFP.

The Yemeni government last week announced a counter-offensive aimed at retaking all areas held by the Houthis.

The Houthis confirmed that government forces had attacked in the Bab al-Mandab area — a key chokepoint for Red Sea oil and cargo shipping — but claimed to have repelled them.

Claims by the warring parties have been impossible to independently verify, with the situation moving fast on the ground and access for journalists difficult.

Analyst Anna Jacob of the Arab Gulf States Institute predicted the Saudis would take an even tougher tack against the Houthis in response to the recent attacks.

“One thing is for sure, we are moving up the escalation ladder in a very dangerous way,” she said.

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