At least one person was killed in an attack on the international airport in the capital, Riyadh, the Saudi civil aviation authority said on Monday. The person killed was a Pakistani national, who was killed in the attack on Sunday evening, with at least 11 people injured, authorities reported on the X platform.
The attack caused damage the extent of which is still being assessed. It was the second attack on the airport in the past two days. In the attack on Saturday, at least 12 people were killed and more than 300 injured. The authority for aviation reported on an attack on King Fahd Airport in Dammam on Sunday, which also caused damage.
The responsibility for the attacks was taken by the Yemeni rebels, the Houthis. They warned that the airports and airspace of the kingdom were "legitimate targets" for the militia linked to Iran, with the exception of Mecca and Medina, which are holy places for Muslims. The Houths stated that they had carried out four attacks in Saudi Arabia in the previous 24 hours, using ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones.
According to their report, the targets included two airports, a gas plant and an oil refinery owned by the state oil company, Aramco. The militia stated that Saudi Arabia had carried out more than 120 air attacks on the capital, Sanaa, and other provinces in that period. It was not possible to independently verify these claims.
The member states of the so-called R4 group - Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - jointly condemned the attacks by the Houthi militia as a "flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom". The R4 group assessed the attacks as "a dangerous escalation that cannot be justified or accepted under any pretext".
The Houthis have been fighting the internationally recognised government of Yemen for more than a decade. A ceasefire was reached in 2022, which largely froze the conflict, but did not pave the way for lasting peace. The conflict has recently reignited in the context of a wider war involving Iran, which has further deepened the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Saudi Arabia, one of the world's largest oil producers, had previously blamed the Houthis for attacks on civilian facilities in the kingdom and launched retaliatory attacks on rebel targets in Yemen.
