The Iran-backed Houthi militia attacked an international airport in the Saudi capital on Saturday, killing at least 12 people and injuring 50, according to three officials briefed on the strike, which came as the war between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis sharply escalates.
The strike was the deadliest attack in a Gulf Arab country since the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began in February. The officials — two Western and one Arab official — spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the news media.
The Saudi civil aviation agency said it was still assessing damage at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, the capital, and announced the temporary suspension of operations there. Repeated, deadly Houthi attacks on the airport this week have struck at the heart of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ambitions to turn the city into a global travel and business hub, threatening to disrupt major international events planned for the coming weeks.
Across the border in Yemen, Saudi warplanes have been waging a deadly bombing campaign against the Houthis, who say that the country has been subjected to hundreds of airstrikes in recent weeks, killing children and other civilians.
Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a senior Houthi official, said the militia was responsible for the attack in Riyadh on Saturday, which he said was in retaliation for Saudi strikes, including on civilian infrastructure in Yemen.
The Houthis carried out the attack “so that the world understands that airports, seaports, wedding and mourning halls, hospitals, and markets in Yemen are civilian facilities that must not be targeted or harmed — and that the same rules that apply to these facilities in Yemen must also apply to their counterparts everywhere else,” he said.
Saudi officials did not immediately respond to questions about details of the attack. A reporter for The New York Times, however, saw at least six ambulances heading toward the airport, where the police had blocked entry.
The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, along with other Western embassies, urged its citizens to avoid the area and warned of travel disruptions.
Speaking at the White House, President Trump told reporters, “we just found out about the recent attack.” He said the United States would “make a decision” about possibly intervening in the conflict, without offering further detail. Mr. Trump carried out a bombing campaign against the Houthis last year, declaring a swift victory after the United States burned through weapons and munitions at a rate of about $1 billion in the first month alone.
The Houthis also carried out attacks earlier this week on airports in Riyadh and Abha, in the south of the kingdom, killing and injuring several people, according to the Saudi authorities.
Saudi Arabia previously led a disastrous bombing campaign against the Houthis in 2015, after the militia took over Yemen’s capital of Sanaa, routing the Yemeni government. During the brutal war that ensued, hundreds of thousands of people died from violence, hunger and disease, but the Houthis survived, cementing their rule over northern Yemen.
A truce in 2022 brought a fragile peace to the country, until the United States and Israel attacked Iran in February, igniting a regional war.
Tensions between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis re-emerged in July, after the Houthis accused the kingdom of bombing the airport in Sanaa. The Saudi-backed Yemeni government claimed responsibility for that bombing, saying it was acting to prevent an unauthorized Iranian plane from landing.
The Houthis have long bristled at restrictions on their airspace that are enforced by Saudi Arabia, calling them a blockade. They soon announced that they intended to enforce a “blockade for blockade” policy and declared an embargo on Saudi shipping in the Red Sea — which has become an important alternative route for Saudi oil exports after the Iran war disrupted shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway near Iran.
Yemen’s internal war soon reignited, with fierce clashes between the Houthis and Saudi-backed forced allied with the Yemeni government.
The Houthis seized Yemen’s entire Red Sea coastline last month in a lightning offensive that gave the group greater control over the Bab al-Mandab Strait, an important choke point for global trade.
Finally, a full-blown war broke out last weekend. The Saudi-backed Yemeni government announced a new military campaign against the Houthis, pledging to oust them from all of the territory they had seized over the past 12 years, and Saudi Arabia began a new bombing campaign against the militia.
That decision has plunged the kingdom deeper into the regional fallout of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, the Houthis’ main backer. Prince Mohammed now faces the difficult task of stopping the Houthi attacks while avoiding another prolonged war that could derail his economic plans.
Analysts say that a political solution to the conflict has become increasingly challenging to work out as the Houthis’ demands continue to grow. Houthi officials, battle-hardened by a decade of warfare and ruling a countryside with much of its infrastructure already destroyed by the fighting, appear to be calculating that they can inflict greater pain on Saudi Arabia than the kingdom can inflict on them.
Over the coming weeks, Riyadh was expected to host visitors from around the world for major global events, beginning on Sunday with the W.P.C. Energy Congress, an international gathering of energy officials and executives.
In an email to participants late on Friday, organizers of the event said it would proceed as planned and offered alternative travel options, including coordinated flights with Saudia, the national carrier. The airline’s flights were among those diverted on Saturday, according to flight-tracking data.
Later this month, Riyadh is also expected to host the Future Investment Initiative, Prince Mohammed’s annual investment summit, which typically draws world leaders, billionaires and top global executives. Organizers have yet to announce any changes to that event’s schedule.
Shuaib Almosawa contributed reporting from Sanaa, Yemen.
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