Houthi attack on Riyadh airport: twelve dead, over 300 injured

A missile launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels has hit King Khalid international airport in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The toll reported so far stands at at least 12 dead and over 300 injured.

This is reported by Al Jazeera, citing the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), and CNN, citing the Reuters agency together with official Saudi sources: two independent sources, one of them institutional, which agree on the number of victims.

Among the dead are four Saudi citizens and eight foreigners: two citizens of Bangladesh, one American, one Jordanian, one Palestinian, one Syrian, one Sudanese and one Egyptian. The variety of nationalities involved reflects King Khalid’s nature as an international hub, a crossroads of flights to the Gulf, South Asia and North Africa.

This is the third missile attack this week against the same airport. Saudi authorities have ordered the closure of the airport at least until Sunday evening, with over 600 flights cancelled in the last few hours. The repetition of strikes within a few days has made a prolonged suspension of operations necessary, with direct consequences on regional and international connections passing through Riyadh, a regular hub for flights to the Indian subcontinent and East Africa.

A senior Houthi movement official, Nasr al-Din Amer, publicly claimed the action on social media.

“We have closed Riyadh’s international airport” (transl. from English) — Nasr al-Din Amer, Houthi official

The claim, released through a social media channel linked to the group, confirms the attack’s origin without adding, for now, details on the type of weapon used or the missile’s trajectory. Neither Al Jazeera nor CNN report, in their accounts, a separate official claim from the Houthi political leadership based in Sana’a, a point that remains to be verified in future updates.

The episode is part of a sequence of three strikes in close succession against the same infrastructure within a week, a fact that points to a targeted intensification against the Saudi capital’s airport rather than an isolated attack. The sources consulted do not provide, for now, a detailed account of the two previous actions nor a consolidated overall toll of all three events together: the figures released so far concern exclusively the most recent attack.

The halt in flights and the prolonged closure represent the most immediate and measurable effect of the attack: over 600 cancellations recorded so far, with the airport remaining inactive at least until Sunday evening, according to statements from the Saudi civil aviation authorities. It remains to be clarified when and under what security conditions the airport will resume normal operations.