Houthi strike kills 12 at Riyadh airport in deadliest attack on Saudi kingdom in decade

A missile struck Riyadh's international airport on Saturday morning, killing at least twelve people and wounding more than three hundred. It was the deadliest attack on Saudi Arabia in more than a decade, and the third assault on the same facility in a single week. The dead included four Saudi nationals, two Bangladeshis, and one person each from the United States, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Sudan, and Egypt. By official count, 309 were injured. Hospitals filled with ambulances and helicopters delivering the wounded, many in critical condition, as the scale of the strike became clear.

The attack bore the hallmarks of the Iran-backed Houthis, though the group had not formally claimed responsibility. A Houthi media official posted on social media that they had "shut down Riyadh international airport." The strike exposed a persistent vulnerability in Saudi air defenses even as the kingdom has waged an intensive air campaign against the militants for more than a decade. An eyewitness at the airport described seeing an object cross the sky before part of the ceiling near a departure gate collapsed. More than a dozen ambulances rushed toward the terminal. The Saudi civil aviation authority suspended all operations and diverted incoming flights elsewhere.

This attack came as part of an escalating campaign the Houthis launched in the summer after a two-year ceasefire with Saudi Arabia unraveled. The previous two strikes on King Khalid International Airport that week had killed four people and damaged a commercial aircraft parked on the tarmac. The Houthis have declared Saudi airspace a zone of military operations, warning international airlines to avoid the region except over the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Several carriers had already suspended or reduced service to Riyadh in response to the earlier attacks.

The broader conflict traces back to 2015, when Saudi Arabia led an Arab military coalition into Yemen to dislodge the Houthis from the capital, Sanaa. The war became a grinding stalemate that killed hundreds of thousands through combat and famine. A ceasefire negotiated in 2022 held until this summer, when it collapsed. The Houthis then executed a rapid advance that captured Bab el-Mandeb, a critical chokepoint in the Red Sea. This week, the Saudi-backed Yemeni government launched an offensive to retake that territory, though progress has been slow even as the Houthis tightened a siege around Taiz, the country's third-largest city.

The strike landed as Riyadh prepared to host major energy and investment conferences. Conference organizers said the events would proceed as scheduled despite the security situation and airline cancellations. The U.S. embassy in Riyadh advised all American citizens to avoid the airport and surrounding areas. President Donald Trump, when asked whether the United States might join Saudi military strikes against the Houthis, said Washington was considering the option. "We may. We're going to look at it," Trump told reporters. "We move very quickly." Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the attacks as demonstrating "a blatant disregard for innocent civilian life." UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for an immediate halt to strikes on civilians and civilian infrastructure, citing violations of international law.

The Saudi-led coalition has claimed hundreds of strikes on Houthi-held territory. The Houthis have countered that these operations have killed civilians, including women and children. Reuters could not independently verify those claims. What remained clear was that the ceasefire that had briefly paused the conflict was gone, and the airport that serves a city of eight million people had become a target in a war that shows no sign of ending.