Photo: liton islam / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
At least 12 people were killed and 309 injured in Saturday’s attack on King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital Riyadh, local authorities said, making it the deadliest strike yet on the country’s main airport in a week of repeated attacks. Some of the injured are in critical condition, and all operations at the airport have been suspended.
Who was killed
According to the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority, the dead were four Saudi citizens and two Bangladeshi nationals, along with one person each from Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Sudan, Syria and the United States. A regional official said a missile hit the complex housing terminals 3 and 4, which handle domestic flights. One witness who was in the domestic terminal said the area around gate 401 was hit and people were hurt in front of him.
Hospitals in the city were put on emergency footing, with doctors called in to treat the wounded. The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said a projectile also fell near King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, in the east of the country.
Flights cancelled, embassies warn citizens
Flights bound for Riyadh were diverted or cancelled, and several Gulf carriers, including Kuwait Airways, called off services, citing the security situation. Flight-tracking data showed at least 291 cancellations at the airport over 24 hours. The US embassy urged Americans to avoid the area, and the UK told its nationals to stay away until the airport was secure. Saudi authorities have also warned the public against filming or sharing images of interceptions and impact sites.
US President Donald Trump said Washington was looking at whether to join Saudi strikes on the Houthis and would decide quickly. Qatar, Bahrain, the UK and the Palestinian foreign ministry were among those that condemned the attack.
A week of escalating strikes
Saturday’s strike was the third on the airport this week. Days earlier, three Saudis, including a pilot, were killed in attacks on the hub claimed by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, and three more people died in Houthi attacks on two Saudi airports on October 6 and 7.
The Houthis say they are targeting Saudi Arabia for backing Yemen’s internationally recognised government. An informal truce reached in 2022 began to collapse in July, after which the group announced a “maritime embargo” on the kingdom and launched missile and drone attacks on its airports, oil installations and tankers in the Red Sea. Fighting on the ground has also intensified, with the Houthis seizing stretches of the Red Sea coast, including the port of Mokha near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a vital shipping chokepoint.
What to watch
The scale of the casualties is likely to increase pressure on Riyadh and its allies to respond, and a US decision on joining strikes could widen the conflict further. For travellers, the immediate questions are when flights at the capital’s main hub will resume and how safe the kingdom’s other airports are.
