New Houthi attack kills 1 at Riyadh airport

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, marked a sharp escalation in the Yemen war, in which Riyadh has long provided military support to the internationally recognised government fighting the Houthis.
The Iran-backed group claimed responsibility on Sunday for multiple attacks over the previous 24 hours, including the airport strike. It threatened to continue targeting the kingdom’s transport hubs, describing them as a theatre of operations for our forces.

Hours later, the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis reported that a projectile had struck King Khalid International Airport, causing a fire. Air defences also intercepted a missile nearby, it added.

Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said on X that the latest airport attack killed one person, a Pakistani resident, and wounded 11 others.

The airport’s closure has been extended by 24 hours, until 2100 GMT on Monday, flight-tracking website Flightradar24 said on the same platform.

AFP journalists and residents reported hearing multiple explosions in the Saudi capital on Sunday.
'The birds went into a frenzy after the sound. The whole house shook,' said a resident of the Al-Aarid neighbourhood in northern Riyadh.

The civil aviation authority also reported another attack on Dammam airport in eastern Saudi Arabia, which the Houthis also claimed to have targeted. The report came a day after the Saudi-led coalition said a projectile had landed nearby.

Shortly afterwards, the coalition reported shooting down a drone in the east.

Early on Monday, the coalition said it had also 'intercepted and destroyed' a Houthi ballistic missile heading towards Khamis Mushait, a city in southern Saudi Arabia that is home to a major military base.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told his Saudi counterpart in a phone call that ‘insisting on a military approach and disregarding a political solution would further complicate the current situation’, according to Iranian state media.

A spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry said on X that one of the strikes killed a civilian and wounded five others.