Saudis say Riyadh airport struck for 2nd day in a row, separate airport also attacked

Saudis say Riyadh airport struck for 2nd day in a row, separate airport also attacked

Yemen's Houthi rebels claim responsibility for Sunday's attacks as conflict intensifies

A projectile struck a passenger terminal at the international airport in Riyadh on Sunday, a day after a missile hit the same terminal and killed 12 people, the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said. The Houthis claimed responsibility for those attacks and others.

Saudi authorities said there were injuries in the latest attack on the King Khalid International Airport complex for terminals 3 and 4 for domestic flights. Saturday's missile attack was the deadliest in a Gulf Arab nation since the Iran war began, with another 300 people wounded, some critically.

The sharp escalation in the new front in the Iran war threatens to draw in greater U.S. military involvement as U.S. President Donald Trump has said he is weighing joining the fight against the rebels.

India's embassy in Saudi Arabia said one of its citizens died Sunday of injuries sustained in Saturday's attack, which would bring the death toll to 13.

Saudi authorities later said King Fahd International Airport in Dammam also had been attacked, with few details. The city is on the Persian Gulf near Bahrain and Qatar.

The strikes came shortly after the Houthis said the airport under their control in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa had been struck again. They blamed the Saudis but provided no details.

Saudi-led coalition vows retaliation after deadly Houthi attack on Riyadh airport

At stake, again, are global supplies and prices of oil, as well as commercial shipping through a crucial alternative waterway to the Iran-threatened Strait of Hormuz — along with civilians and aviation throughout the region.

Trump on Saturday also said he planned to speak with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been seeking assistance.

A U.S. intervention could prompt the Houthis to halt shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea off Yemen and further restrict the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf. The rebels seized key areas along the strait last month, and the Saudi-led coalition has been trying to seize them back.

Saudi Arabia is running low on missile interceptors and has asked France, Britain, Pakistan and Egypt to deploy air defence support to the region, regional officials told The Associated Press last month, with one noting that the U.S. has seen its own stock dwindle during the war with Iran.

Sunday's attack occurred as the Saudis hosted a major international energy conference in Riyadh, with other high-profile events, including an investment gathering, on the horizon. Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has sought to open more to the world as a business and tourism destination, but the Houthi attacks threaten those efforts.

Who are the Houthis? How they could send oil prices surging even further

"There is no way that somebody will break our back. We are like a phoenix, we come out of the ashes all the time," the Saudi energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud, told the conference.

He added that the kingdom is also working on pipelines, in addition to the East-West one that was attacked and closed for days last month, with no details.

Airports a 'theatre of operations': Houthis

Earlier Sunday, the Houthi-run Health Ministry reported that a child was killed and six people wounded in a suspected Saudi airstrike on a house in Sanaa.

The ministry says 91 Yemenis have been killed and 168 injured by the Saudi-led coalition in five weeks. It said that 60 per cent of those killed were women and children.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi authorities.

How the Houthis became major Middle East disruptors

On Sunday, the Houthis claimed the attack on the airport in Dammam as well as attacks on oil and gas facilities in the kingdom's east. They have targeted the Riyadh airport, which has no military facilities, every day since Wednesday.

The rebels again warned "all airlines, experts, employees, workers and ​travellers against using Saudi airports and airspace, as they are vulnerable to attack and have become a theatre of operations for our ​forces." Several international airlines have suspended flights for varying periods.

Saudi authorities said the dead in Saturday's attack included four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshi nationals, a Palestinian, a U.S. citizen, an Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Syrian and a Sudanese.

Relatives display a portrait of Syrian citizen Buthaina Ahmad Oweida, whom they say was killed in Saturday's attack on the international airport in Riyadh. (Omar Albam/The Associated Press)

The Egyptian woman was a flight attendant identified as Azza Ramzy, 28, who worked for the Saudi airline Flynas, according to the Egyptian state-run TV.

The Syrian woman was a widowed mother of four who had been living in Saudi Arabia for five years, a relative told The Associated Press. The Syrian Embassy in Riyadh identified her as Buthaina Ahmad Oweida.

Until recently, the Houthis had been largely on the sidelines of the Iran war. Now, the rebels are helping Iran to pressure a key U.S. ally.

The Saudis and the Houthis began fighting in 2015, when the kingdom entered Yemen's civil war on behalf of the internationally recognized government.

Relative calm after a 2022 ceasefire ended in July, when the Houthis resumed attacks, saying the Saudis fired on the Sanaa airport as a plane from Iran was trying to land. That revived anger over the Saudi-led blockade that has largely isolated Houthi-run areas.

More than 200,000 people displaced as renewed fighting grips Yemen, UN agency says

Now fighting has escalated, with the Saudi-led coalition providing air support for Yemeni government forces attempting to reverse recent Houthi gains along the Red Sea.

Those gains gave the rebels better surveillance of shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb, a corridor that is a crucial alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has been attacking ships.

Ahmed Nagi, the International Crisis Group's senior analyst for Yemen, said the Houthi pressure tactics could backfire: "Rather than pushing Riyadh to step back, attacks on critical Saudi infrastructure could make the Saudis more determined to continue the campaign."