Explosions at Riyadh’s main airport have left three Saudi nationals dead, including an airline pilot, Saudi authorities said, after Yemen’s Houthis claimed responsibility for a string of strikes targeting the facility.
The escalating violence underscores how Yemen’s war has spilled across the border, with the Iran-backed Houthis intensifying attacks on Saudi targets even as they press gains inside Yemen against the Saudi-backed government.
In parallel with their push along Yemen’s Red Sea coastline, the Houthis have repeatedly struck Saudi transport hubs, oil facilities and other civilian sites in the world’s largest crude exporter, widening the conflict’s footprint and raising pressure on the kingdom’s infrastructure.
Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said two attacks yesterday hit the airport in the capital and a Saudia Airlines aircraft on the ground, saying the incidents “resulted in the martyrdom of three citizens”.
Saudia, the national flag carrier, confirmed that the plane’s captain was among those killed, saying it was expressing “profound sadness” following an “incident” at King Khalid International Airport.
Despite a counter-offensive aimed at rolling back Houthi advances — including around the Bab al-Mandab strait, a chokepoint vital to global energy flows — Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government forces it supports have struggled to halt the group’s momentum.
Still, a regional source said Riyadh would not yield to what it described as the Houthis’ “military blackmail”, and would refuse any truce until the Yemeni government recovers all territory it has lost in recent weeks.
The strikes reverberated through Riyadh, prompting diplomats based in the capital to shelter in place and international schools to implement safety precautions as blasts echoed across the city yesterday.
At King Khalid International Airport, numerous flights were delayed or cancelled, and the airport urged travellers about the “necessity” of checking with airlines before heading to the terminal.
Saudi Arabia’s civil defence agency said that “interception debris” also damaged a kindergarten and a medical complex in Riyadh, without specifying whether anyone was hurt or detailing the extent of the destruction.
‘Crisis in everything’
The Houthis draw much of their support from Zaidi Shia Muslim communities in the northwest and have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, along with most major population centres since the war began in 2014.
Saudi-led forces intervened the following year to shore up the Yemeni government.
After the government announced a counter-offensive, it said it had driven the Houthis from key positions on the Red Sea coast and from the port city of Mocha.
The Houthis, however, say they remain in control, and military sources on both sides have not reported major shifts in territory.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group launched missiles yesterday at an airport in Najran and at an airbase in Khamis Mushait.
A member of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces firing a gun during clashes with Houthi fighters in Hayfan
The group has also told workers to leave Saudi oil sites, after striking a major refinery south of the capital days earlier.
Saudi authorities do not often acknowledge that civilian locations have been hit, and in recent weeks there have been only limited official statements about Houthi attacks.
With events moving quickly and journalists facing restricted access, claims from both sides have been impossible to independently verify.
Inside Yemen — one of the world’s poorest countries — civilians are bearing the brunt of the renewed combat, with more than 200,000 people displaced since July, according to UN data.
In Taiz, in the country’s west, the Houthis are besieging the government-held city, cutting residents off from the main supply route to Aden, the government’s temporary capital.
“There is a crisis in everything: water, gas, vegetables, everything essential”, said Um Rian.
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