After the deadliest attack in Saudi Arabia in more than a decade, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman faces growing pressure to find a way to stop the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen from firing missiles and drones at his country.
Yet the prince, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, has few options as he confronts an asymmetrical conflict with an adversary that has become stronger since he led a disastrous war against it a decade ago, analysts say.
The Houthis have carried out three fatal attacks on an international airport in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, over the past week. Those included a strike on a passenger terminal on Saturday that killed at least 12 people and injured more than 300, many of them critically, according to the Saudi authorities.
The attacks have brought the kingdom’s faraway war in Yemen home, stripping Saudis and foreign residents of the sense of security that they had largely maintained throughout years of a Saudi-led bombing campaign in neighboring Yemen.
They have also hit at the heart of Prince Mohammed’s ambitions to transform Saudi Arabia from an insular, oil-dependent nation into a global hub for business and tourism.
But there is no easy way for the crown prince to halt the Houthis’ attacks. A political resolution with the militia has become increasingly difficult to reach as its confidence and demands grow, and attempting to defeat the Houthis militarily is unlikely to work either, analysts say. The group has little to lose, and has become increasingly battle-hardened after repeated confrontations with powerful, wealthier enemies.
Saudi Arabia is receiving significant military support from the United States as it confronts the Houthis, including targeting assistance and aerial refueling. President Trump said he would “make a decision” about intervening more forcefully in the conflict after Saturday’s attack on the airport in Riyadh, without offering details.
However, 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 only realistic solution for the Saudis is an end to the Iranian-American war, in which the U.S. gets the Iranians to commit the Houthis to an end of hostilities as part of the overall deal,” said F. Gregory Gause, a Saudi specialist at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based research group. “Unfortunately for the Saudis, it is not clear how much President Trump listens to them on this.”
The attacks on the airport came just months after commercial flights began for the prince’s new international airline, which has its headquarters in Riyadh. In the coming weeks, the kingdom is set to host several major political and business events, but it is unclear whether global executives and officials will feel safe enough to attend.
On Sunday, an international gathering of energy executives and policymakers began in Riyadh. In two weeks, Prince Mohammed is planning to host his flagship annual investment summit, during which world leaders, billionaires and executives were expected to descend upon the city to hobnob with Saudi officials and fund managers.
“The problem for the Saudis is that they experience more damage from Houthi strikes on their infrastructure than the other way around,” Mr. Gause said. “A strike on Riyadh Airport could lead someone thinking about investing in the country to reconsider.”
The attack on Saturday was the deadliest in Saudi Arabia since a suicide bombing at a mosque in 2015, and the deadliest attack in any Gulf Arab country since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran in February.
In recent days, the Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, has issued repeated warnings to airlines and travelers against using Saudi airports, declaring them a “theater of operations for our forces.”
“We urge everyone to take these warnings seriously and hold Saudi Arabia responsible for any failed interceptions,” he said on Sunday.
The Houthis, who rule over bomb-scarred countryside where most critical infrastructure has already been destroyed, appear to be calculating that they can inflict more pain on Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s largest exporters of oil, than the kingdom can inflict on them, analysts say.
The escalation of violence between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis began in July, when an airstrike hit the international airport in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, which the Houthis control. The Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of carrying out the attack. The Saudi-backed Yemeni government claimed responsibility for the strike, and said it had been acting to prevent an unauthorized Iranian plane from landing. Analysts, however, say it is unlikely that the Yemeni government carried the attack out on its own, and that it no longer has a functional air force.
The attack on Sanaa airport set off a chain of events that culminated last week in a return to full-blown war between the Houthis, and Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government.
The Houthis rose to power in 2014, when the militia took over Sanaa, routing the internationally recognized government.
Soon after, Prince Mohammed, in one of his first acts as Saudi Arabia’s 29-year-old minister of defense, pledged to restore the Yemeni government by declaring war against the Houthis, at the time a ragtag group of rebels.
The prince, now 41, has consolidated his power inside Saudi Arabia and beyond. Yet the Yemeni militia has also become stronger and more self-sufficient, and it poses a more intractable challenge than any other he has faced.
The Saudi-led bombing campaign a decade ago precipitated one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. In Yemen, hundreds of thousands of people died from violence, hunger and disease. Rights groups said the Saudi campaign disproportionately targeted civilians. In one of the most notorious Saudi strikes, which spurred international condemnation, a Saudi fighter jet bombed a school bus in 2018, killing 44 children and 10 adults.
Yet the Houthis survived, and cemented their rule over northern Yemen.
A truce in 2022 brought a fragile peace to the country, until the United States and Israel attacked Iran more than seven months ago, sparking a regional war and reigniting tensions between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis.
After the strike on Sanaa airport, the Houthis, who have long bristled at restrictions on their airspace that are enforced by Saudi Arabia, announced that they intended to enforce a “blockade for blockade” policy. They 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.
Yemen’s civil war reignited, with fierce clashes between the Houthis and Saudi-backed forces allied with the Yemeni government. Last week, the Yemeni government announced a new offensive against the Houthis, promising to push them out of the territory they had seized over the past 12 years, and Saudi Arabia announced a new bombing campaign against the militia.
Prince Turki Al Faisal, a senior Saudi royal and a former Saudi intelligence chief, said that while the kingdom had always preferred “restraint” in its foreign policy, the Houthis had exceeded the limits of the Saudi leadership’s patience.
“Restraint is no longer operable,” he said in an interview last week with a Saudi newspaper, Arab News.
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