- Authorities extend closure of Riyadh airport by 24 hours.
- Saudi civil authority reports attack on Dammam airport.
- Iran says ready to help initiate Saudi Arabia-Houthis dialogue.
RIYADH: A fresh Houthi strike hit Riyadh’s international airport on Sunday, killing a Pakistani national 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.
The 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.
“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 spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry claimed 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.
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.
On the ground in Yemen, 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.
